The Grey Elephant's Curse : famicom pirates in russia

The Grey Elephant's Curse (with English subtitles)

This movie tells a story about 8-bit gaming era in Russia's 90s. Remember AVGN's reviews revealing the dark side of video game industry in the USA?
Well, the stories he told are no match to what a typical Russian gamer had to face then, a long time ago. No Nintendo tech support, no official N distributing, just a vast wild piracy market, divided into elephant-faced "official piracy" and "pirate piracy" . Hardware problems, software glitches, the trademark "Made-in-China" quality. That time, even cheatbooks lied and there was no Internet to help you through.
"Dendy", "Steepler", VG consoles, clones, accessories, games and more - in Kinaman's new review movie "The Grey Elephant's Curse".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJQr3tnjHlg

The Grey Elephant's Curse - unsuccessful doubles (with English subtitles)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr9KxOXrjtI

The Grey Elephant's Curse - Deleted Scene (with English subtitles)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XTRMg9SVN0


Dendy Chronicles #1 (with English subtitles)

Continuation of the film "The Grey Elephant's Curse". The first episode is devoted to the Super Mario universe, and more specifically - all the games on it, ever released on the Dendy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kne6AKyYUuM

Spanish translation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df4MNzCByng

Dendy Chronicles #2 (with English subtitles)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unhavc-_WBE

Dendy Chronicles #3 (with English subtitles)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOzCQ9egtZs

Dendy Chronicles #4 (with English subtitles)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ1TVphtQiQ

Dendy Chronicles #5 (with English subtitles)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2JreLm4-mY

Dendy Chronicles #6 (with English subtitles)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHNHCpXiPYc

 

I can't even imagine being forced to rely on Chinese pirates for video game goodness. Those poor tortured Russians!

 

Great video. thanks for the link.

Yakumo

 

Dendy Chronicles - issue #1 (with English subtitles)

Continuation of the film "The Grey Elephant's Curse". The first episode is devoted to the Super Mario universe, and more specifically - all the games on it, ever released on the Dendy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kne6AKyYUuM

Spanish translation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df4MNzCByng

Dendy Chronicles - issue #2 (with English subtitles)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unhavc-_WBE

 

I'm loving these. Keep'em coming.

Yakumo

EDIT: By the way, who subtitlesthese? I noticed that part 3 is up but not subtitled. Are they subtitled by a 3rd party? I'm looking forward to part 3 with subs :thumbsup:

 

I watched The Grey Elephant's Curse last night, and Dendy Chronicles 1 & 2 today. They were nice! I was awfully disappointed that Dendy Chronicles 3 hasn't been English-captioned yet; hope it's up soon. I'm also curious if these are subbed by someone other than the creator... anyway they have been great fun so far.

Thanks a lot for sharing!

 

Awesome stuff. Loved watching. Even the third one I could understand half of it from just from looking the guy's frustration and the images from the games. :thumbsup:

 

Subtitles for part 3 will be soon.

 

I had always wanted to see Russia's take on gaming. I love everything Soviet and grew up with Soviet Union books translated to Spanish and whatnot.

I always wondered about Dendy and what it was really like. This is fucking awesome. Thanks.

Man, sorry about the double post, but I just wanted to say that your Dendy stuff is fucking brilliant.

I have loved every video you uploaded. We got most of the same piracy in Mexico but it wasn't fucking official. Man, insane shit.

Awesome. Fucking awesome videos, man. Superb.

 

Really interesting watch, keep it up

 

I agree, maybe with fewer swear words (but just maybe).

Just wonder where the weird "Ninja Turtles" art with sunglasses came from, since I've got a pirate cart with that art on it too (and it doesn't even have any of the Turtles' games on it). I'd say it's definitely not official, but there was so much Ninja Turtle crap out there that I can't count out that possibility.

 

This is great stuff, thanks for sharing!

 

Ha, maybe I do swear too fucking much.

Anywho, I do recall seeing my share of weird-ass ninja turtle art on famiclone carts back in the day. Weirder stuff came later than the original generation of famiclones, though. Earlier famiclones were classier.

Those "Mario Grand Dad" and similar hacks are way more recent, too . I started seeing those in the grey market in the early 2000s - with the newer, even shittier, famiclones.

That Mario 5 that was just Mario 2, that one was indeed common in the early 90s in Mexico, though. And many Mario multicarts, including one that had a lot of Mario games on it, with no hacks. Mario 4 / Armadillo, as I have mentioned here before, was available in 91 or 92 down here. It gave me nightmares (I still cannot fathom why it'd scare a weird 10 year old so much) and I traded it back. I remember it was a greenish blue cartridge.

I recently bought a multicart that has many of the awful, horrendous, more recent mario hacks. Man, did you guys suffer this in Russia...

Now, I have a question. I see the official Super Nintendo prices in rubles in the video, but I would like to know how much it would be equivalent to in dollars back then. Is there someone here who could calculate that?

 

part 3 is now subtitled

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOzCQ9egtZs&feature=feedu

 

That was quick, just earlier today I was hoping they'd subtitle part 3.
Now I want a boxed Dendy cartridge for no particular reason except that the boxes look cool to me.

 

Can't wait to watch part 3, it's crapping having to share the study room

 

Really great! Loved watching these. Now I want a Dendy.

 

Are the others going to be translated? Very funny stuff

 

Kinaman is a great guy! It's really cool that someone finally told the truth and subtitled it in English, so Dendy is becoming recognizable in the world)) Actually it was a great company - despite all the stuff that you can see in the videos, dendy brought video gaming in Russia. Only diplomats and very wealthy people could afford to bring extremely expensive official consoles from abroad.

But Dendy (actually the company was called Steepler) made it available for all kids in Russia. The carts were rather cheap and you could trade them in video game shops and markets. Of course the quality was bad, but it was much better than nothing. If there was no Steepler, we would not have that amazing childhood.

P.S. Right now you can buy dendy (famiclone) in Russia officially in stores for 25$ with multicart, two controllers and a lightgun. But it's made by NewGame (in Russia, I guess) and the quality even cant be compared to the Steepler's consoles. China made it much better)))

 

Hopefully he does more since they are great