So you wanna play a European game on your American Nintendo? Not so fast buddy, there's a lockout-chip in there that says otherwise! NES game cartridges have primitive region-specific hardware installed just to stop worldly folks like you who might want to experience even a tiny part of a foreign culture. But rather than cry bloody murder over marketing-based censorship, we'll just hack a simple workaround.

To start with, never ever even think about working on electronics that are still plugged in to the wall! Seriously kiddies, don't do it. Even though there's an external adapter that steps down the power from the outlet, the unassuming 1.3 amps is still more than enough to disrupt the normal electric patterns in your heart and end your life. You should get in the habit of physically checking with your hand to make sure your device is always unplugged. A quick glance in the right direction isn't enough when you could be putting your life on the line.

Once unplugged, most devices still retain a charge in something called a 'capacitor'. Sometimes these have enough energy to give you a bad shock, burn, or death, but in this case I would be more worried about damaging the electronic components. So after you unplug the power cord, push the power button and try to turn it on. The red LED in front should light up for a fraction of a second and then go out. This helps drain off some of those capacitors. Go ahead and push the button again to turn it off just on principle that things should be that way before you take them apart.

Now flip that baby upside-down and get a container to put the screws in. Grab your phillips-head screwdriver and go to work! There are 6 screws on the outside shell. Inside there are 13 screws: 7 that hold the motherboard and 6 that hold the black box that receives the games. Take them all out and put them somewhere where they won't roll away, i.e. NOT loosely on a tabletop!

This will take longer than you like. You will have to remove all the screws that hold on this metal cover box inside before you get to the black box and then remove all the screws holding that in as well. Now would be a good time to put on some music if you haven't already done so. Makes the time go a little faster.

Turn the board over and look at those black rectangles. These are called Integrated Circuits, or IC's. You want the one labeled "3193A". Take a closer look and you'll see that there are a bunch of legs or 'pins' that connect it to the board. You could de-solder the whole thing and then replace it but you'd need the right tools so we're just gonna modify it in place. Look for the 4th pin from the left on the bottom side. When you find it, break it off! Use small pliers or wire-cutters if you got 'em, otherwise anything small and metal can be inserted behind it and gently twisted to do the trick.

It's important that you don't touch the other components on the board because it's all-too-easy to accidentally break them off. Then you have to go get a variable-temperature soldering iron, a solder-sucker or de-soldering tape, heat sinks, and other accessories to fix it without letting the heat damage any other nearby parts. Oh, and speaking of breakin' stuff, you may or may not want to know that the only purpose this pin serves is to send some voltage to tell the NES to blink the power off/on for a foreign game just like when you slide a game pak in and don't push it down all the way... trust me, you won't miss it.

Now you have to turn the board over again and replace everything the way you found it. Some of the screws can't be put back thru the board until the black box and metal case have been replaced so make sure to do that too. Oh yeah, and you can plug it in now. ;)

Now you can finally play "Gradius On Crack" or whatever other novelty games you might find. You might also want at least 1 beer for step 5... Just a thought, but it does seem to help, especially with games like these. If you're sober you might be tempted to wonder why your space-ship is shooting boxing gloves at a Japanese Uncle Sam Eagle...

This project was made possible thanks to the knowledge of some dude named Mark. Search for "Lockout_NES.txt" for his original file info. Peace out.