By 
Many of you may still have your OG Nintendo (NES) consoles laying around. That is, assuming you are old enough to have owned one of them. But if you are still a proud gamer with 8-Bit graphics, you may be glad to hear that Google is “soon to release” a cartridge that will bring all the benefits that Google Maps has to offer.
It seems the Search Giant has decided to get ahead of April Fool’s day to make a good joke out of this. But honestly, it looks rather cool. Of course, it is unknown if we will actually see a cartridge for the OG Nintendo console, but they might just go through it.
If that is the case, users will be able to play around with Google Maps 8-Bit. The video demonstrates how to fix bugs by blowing on the cartridge (if only Android bugs were so easy to fix). There is also a tutorial and demonstration of the service.
As for the millions of people that no longer have access to a NES console, we can go ahead and test it out straight from the Google Maps website. Simply click on the top-right corner, where it says “Quest,” and you are in for the adventure.
There are dirt roads, castles and monsters. And the navigation system shows your location with an awesome knight! Go take a look and let us know if you find anything interesting! What are you guys planning for tomorrow’s flurry of April Fool’s pranks?
I want a version for my Atari 2600 with Pitfall Harry and Frogger in it. :P
LOL. Start sending the requests to Google! Gameboy, anyone???
Apparently as part of the prank, a Gameboy version is “under development”. Love the guys at Google!
Was that the “Dragon quest” character? It took me months to complete that game.
Dragon Warrior. I hated the metal slimes, they gave up a lot of exp, but were hard as hell to kill, and ran away before you could kill them almost every time.
Lol… I forgot about those. They died with 2 strong hits but always ran away after you hit them once. Good times
Whoa! Check out street view!
there went 2 hours of my life lol did anyone find a monster yet?! (sadly couldn’t get a good 8 bit version of the statue of liberty :(
Yeah, start zooming in on the DC area and keep an eye on a spot to the southeast of there marked as La Plata. There is one there. It’s the only one I’ve found so far. (I was really hoping to find one is DC but just found two kids in beenies. I was also hoping to find one in LA but no luck there either.)
There is a dragon at 0.0000, 0.00000
4/1st…
April Fools!!!!
I can totally see this getting done for real and posting it on HAD.
Good thing I was able to fix my NES just a few months ago! I’m tired of all this “HD” hoopla…..
Sweet NES update I have been waiting for this for like 15 years
Lots of landmarks around the world have been given the 8-bit sprite treatment:
http://www.bulsuk.com/2012/04/google-maps-8-bit-tour-of-world.html
Looking for them is almost like a world tour :)
I’m surprised there isn’t a post on Gmail Tap. Absolutely great stuff!
(Also check out Thinkgeek’s yearly contribution.)
Google’s foray into Nascar is pretty amusing as well.