LevelUP NES Emulator Phone Could Be Old-School Gamers Greatest Gift

By Michael Wong

I think I have finally found a quad band dual SIM phone for all of us Nintendo geeks! the LevelUP Quad band dual SIM phone.

Not only is it a solid performing phone but it brings back all my sweet childhood memories spent in front of the TV playing cool Nintendo games like:

• Legend of Zelda
• Super Mario Brothers 3
• Final Fantasy
• Contra
• Megaman 2
• Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!

That’s because, besides being a knock-out phone it also has a D-Pad and one of the best NES emulator functions you have ever seen…. but more about this later.

Because let’s get one thing straight – aside from the awesome gameplay this is one top notch quad band dual SIM GSM phone.

It takes photos, shoots videos, and also plays music and movies! Pick it up and you’ll love how solid it feels in your hand. Its QWERTY keyboard and state of the art firmware makes this the phone of choice for people who want to be productive! Just ask Steve Anderson from MobileWhack (mobilewhack.com/levelup-quad-band-cell-phone-review-you-wont-believe-this/)

The thing I love most about this phone is that the keyboard swivels. On one side, it’s a QWERTY keyboard that’s as good as any you’ll find on a Blackberry or a Nokia E71. Twist it, and it’s a Nintendo D-Pad.

At first I was skeptical about the twist mechanism.

I remember saying to myself, “moving parts on a phone, surely it will wear out!” So I kept twisting it, over and over. I put it through over 1000 twists (2 hours of my life I’ll never get back) and to my surprise the mechanism stayed firm like my old Nokia 3250!

Normally it takes me 2-3 days to fully test a phone, but this time around I spent close to 2 weeks because I didn’t want to give the phone back.

But enough about the phone in general, lets get back to the important stuff. How well it handles games.

The LevelUP M94 uses the MyNES emulator firmware to run all Nintendo roms with .NES extension, that’s right MyNES, as in MyGod why did I use any other emulator? Because it’s open source it’s always being improved and it means you can get the code so you can improve it if you are so inclined.

Thankfully I have all of my favorite Nintendo games saved up already so putting them on to the phone was not a problem (remember downloading ROMS is wrong kids the RIAA says so)…. All I needed to do was to connect the LevelUP to my computer via the USB port, open up the flash drive dragged and dropped them into the main folder. Then it was game on!

For those who have read my previous blogs (How To Buy Cellphones – Part 2) , you’ll know that my heart belongs to the Odyssey WiFi phone. But after testing the LevelUP M94, how can I explain it?

It’s like when you’re married to a really good woman and then all of a sudden this really attractive girl at work starts talking to you…

So, here’s a story of how addictive the gaming functions are on the LevelUP.

That girl in the photos is Mandy, a colleague.

She didn’t grow up during the Nintendo heyday of the 80’s. She plays World of Warcraft. The other day I was testing the phone (actually playing 1942) when she stopped by my desk and asked me why I was playing a game with such bad graphics.

I introduced her to the game, let her play a few games, and then asked for the phone back.

She grabbed the phone and ran off giggling like a…um…school-girl.

Long story short – she now PWNS me at 1943 Battle of Midway and Final Fantasy and it took me 4 days before I got my the phone back.

The world of cellphones is rife with continuous innovation from such features as quad band and dual SIM, to touchscreen and even wireless internet.

I love where mobile phones are headed, but the LevelUP looks back at the golden age of gaming and allows you to reminisce about those yesteryears where it wasn’t just about the technology, it was about gosh awesome fun.

PS – yes Mandy is wearing a Battle of the Planet tee shirt. And yes I am wearing a Dr Mario tee shirt. That’s how we roll at Chinavasion.