So I was the first on my block to get a couple of new toys this week. Number 1: Star Wars Battlefront II–Number 2: The Messiah NEX System.

Star Wars: Battlefront II
I was happy with the DVD installation as I only had to insert the one disc. Everything installed quickly but it errored at the end when I clicked “Play Battlefront” saying that I had no soundcard. So I checked the sound settings and received the standard Windows “Ding” when I adjusted it. I rebooted. I reinstalled. Sound was not working in the game. I gave up. The second day I went out to “Yoda’s Helpdesk” and I read the FAQ. Apparently it’s a known issue with older Realtek ’97 drivers. I Updated my drivers and the game performs as expected. (P4, 3.2 GHz, 1GB RAM, GT6800)

Messiah’s NEX
As you saw earlier this week, I was pretty excited to get this unit. I was dismayed when I had to repair it out of the box. However, I was pleased when I plugged everything in and–it worked! Regrettably, the unit did not turn out to be everything I expected.

Besides the heatsink being loose in the box, the unit suffered from the following defects:

1. The Sound is off or inaccurate. The sound from the unit is at least an octave too high on games like:

• Super Mario 2
• Tetris 2
• Millipede

2. Screen Flicker

• Millipede is the worst. After about 5-10 minutes of game play it becomes unbearable. It looks like there is a power equalization problem or something causing this. The unit was plugged into a surge protector.

3. The screen is shifted to the right about an inch.

As none of the above symptoms occur on my actual NES models I was saddened. I really wanted to use the Famicom slot for games that were never available in the US. I also wanted to try out that handy 2.4 GHz wireless feature! I was able to do neither as I returned it today.

In Messiah’s defense they are extremely helpful. I spoke with Perry Freeze on the phone who is one of the sales reps at their small company. He was not only concerned, but he offerred me a full refund before offerring an exchange for a new unit. In addition he was open about the manufacturing issues they’ve been having and assured me they were working on improving the quality. This was a huge positive for me as so often we are left dealing with some person who barely speaks your language telling you there are no supervisors available.

So I expect to see the new unit sometime next week–it will be a brand new one–which has been tested at their site and is in good working order–I hope!