NES+SNES = Retro Duo

It's not every day you see a girl at a technology convention playing the original Super Mario Bros. on an HDTV. If it's not quite an oxymoron, it's one hell of a conversation starter.

She explained that she was showing off Retro-Bit's Retro Duo Twin SNES/NES system, which houses both an old-school Nintendo and Super Nintendo in one unit. The machine comes with two Super Nintendo controllers and features both composite and S-video connectors, which means you won't have to track down an RF-to-2009 adapter at RadioShack, and all you need to do is hit up a used games store that sells games made when you thought girls were icky.

If your family is anything like mine, as soon as you moved out of the house, your mom sold your machines at a garage sale for $12, and what's left of your heart shriveled and died when you came home for Christmas and received the bad news. (Seriously, Mom. What the hell?) Now that I'm all grown up and old enough to experience true nostalgia, I occasionally harken back to the days when my only goal was to beat Dr. Wiley in Mega Man 2 before the kid up the street could.

Now, with the Retro Duo, all I need is eBay and a personal day at work to get back to my roots. The best part is, according to the Retro Duo's designer, you still have to blow on the damn NES cartridges occasionally.

Of course, you may be asking yourself why you don't just rock the Wii Virtual Console or - gasp - just download an emulator and play your games on the PC. First, you're a grown-ass man and therefore know the only reason to own a Wii is for the new Punch-Out, which won't feature Mike Tyson and probably won't be all that fun anyway, since flailing around like a simp just to punch Glass Joe again will get old before you reach King Hippo. And to make matters worse, it costs $5 per NES game; you can buy those for $0.50 at a used games place. And as far as emulators go, Nintendo has been cracking down on those since they unveiled Virtual Console (Nintendo let the patents on the NES and SNES expire, so no one will bang down your door with a cease and desist later if you rock the Retro Duo), and playing Super Mario RPG in front of a monitor just isn't the same, man.

Even better, the Retro Duo costs $44.99 on Amazon, less than what you'd pay for a single Xbox 360 title. Not a bad price to steal your childhood back in anyone's book.

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