In
my
last post about video games
I wrote about my first video game console – the Atari 2600 that my
dad inexplicably brought home one day.
The
Atari was fun and certainly a landmark in my life, but the subject of
today’s post was literally life changing in more ways than one.
Today I’m talking about the video game console that changed the
world forever – the Nintendo Entertainment System.
It
was an odd stance. If I’m being honest, I was fairly spoiled as a
child. I was a good kid and for the most part deserved it because I
didn’t cause much, if any, trouble. But I didn’t want for much. I
had all of the Star Wars and GI Joe I wanted. They kept me focused on
specific toy lines, but within those I was well off. And maybe that’s
what was behind it. Maybe one day they decided that I did have too
much and that a line had to be drawn. I dunno.
Whatever
the case, this is an event that stands out in my life. I was nine
years old when the NES was released in North America and owning one
became the most important thing in the world. Especially
after
being told that my usual source of playthings wasn’t going to help
out.
I
can’t remember how long I had to save money. If I had an allowance
at the time, it was less than five bucks a week. I must’ve saved
birthday, Christmas, and any other money I got for a long time. My
memory is fuzzy here, but I think I bought the bundle with Duck
Hunt
and Super
Mario Bros.
with the zap gun. I had wanted the bundle with R.O.B. (Robotic
Operating Buddy), but after playing with it at a friends’ house I
realized it sucked. The same thing happened later with the Power
Glove. I had to spend my
money
on these things, so it changed my priorities quite a bit.
This
is the lesson I learned from the experience of having to pay for the
NES myself. Believe me when I tell you that I took better care of
that video game console than almost anything else I have ever owned.
I was also picky about games. When my parents said they weren’t
buying me video games, it was all-inclusive. There’s another
important story there, but it will have to wait a minute because I
haven’t even gotten to the console yet.
I
believe I paid $179.99 plus tax for my NES. I can’t be sure. I
didn’t want Duck
Hunt
and didn’t understand why I couldn’t pay less and not get Duck
Hunt
until I got home and found that it was on the same cartridge as Super
Mario Bros.
Grown-up logic states that two games being on the same cartridge is
still two games. Little kid logic dictates that I got one less
cartridge than I thought I was getting and was disappointed, even
though I didn’t even want one of the games in the first place.
But
I had my Nintendo console and I was both proud and excited. I’m
sure I played the heck out of Super
Mario Bros.
and gave Duck
Hunt
some cursory plays, but I honestly don’t remember any of the
circumstances surrounding the day I bought the system. I don’t even
recall where we bought it.
Obviously
I didn’t spend the next ten years playing Super
Mario Bros.
Well, I mean, I did,
but I eventually got other games as well. I only remember the
specifics of two of them – Legendary
Wings
and Super
Mario Bros. 2.
A
friend got me a game I knew I didn’t want for my birthday. I don’t
remember what it was, but we took it to Toys R Us to return it. Since
it was still sealed, they said I could exchange it for something of
equal value. Needless to say, this birthday present game from another
middle class kid was not a brand new, full price game, so I was a bit
limited as to what I could buy.
I
spent a long
time looking through games in the store before I made my decision.
Nothing seemed particularly great, but as you know if you’ve ever
been a kid, I had to have a game right then. It simply wasn’t
possible for me to wait and save my money or see if their inventory
of value-priced games improved eventually. So I bought Legendary
Wings.
Legendary
Wings
looked cool. I was into mythology by then, so the image of this
Icarus-like character with a laser gun appealed to me. I can’t say
that Legendary
Wings
is the worst game I’ve ever played. I worked in video game stores
for years and had access to virtually every game made between 1985
and 2005, so I’ve played some shit you’ve never even heard of.
But that game will always bear the stink of being the first shitty
game I owned. It took me all of five minutes to realize that I hated
it.
The
next day Mom took me back to Toys R Us to return it and I encountered
another first – being stuck with a thing that I had spent money on
that I hated. Once games are open you can’t return them. I didn’t
know this at the time. I think my mom argued with the clerk over it,
but rules are rules. And that’s why, to this day, shitty video
games are still being produced.
Side
Note: Invariably someone is going to feel the need to comment here or
over on Facebook, “I liked Legendary
Wings!”
Shut up. Nobody wants to hear it. Unless you’re going to travel
back in time and give my younger self fifty 1980s dollars for that
crap game, you keep your wrong opinions to yourself.
![]() |
By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8240683 |
Super
Mario Bros. 2 was
a whole different story. That game was the most hyped game ever. It’s
probably still up there for record-breaking pre-release anticipation,
at least for me. I had the Nintendo
Power
subscription. I watched all the right afternoon and Saturday morning
cartoons. I knew this thing was coming and I couldn’t possibly have
been more excited.
We
were living in Houston, Texas the Summer that the game was released
and it probably saved my life. I was eleven years old and I did not
want to go to Houston, Texas. We were there for some kind of job
exchange program that my dad’s company was doing. Once we got to
Houston I hated it. It was so hot and humid all the time. I still
have nightmares about the climate there.
To
my parents’ credit, they did everything they could to make the
situation better for me. In retrospect, it was one of the most
amazing Summers I’ve ever had. We had season passes to AstroWorld
and WaterWorld (the theme park, not the Jack Black movie), I got to
see Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys on their “Together Forever”
tour, I got to buy toys from toy lines that were not part of my
normal collecting habits like Army Ants, and I had no bedtime and was
able to discover the magic of Late
Night With David Letterman
and Saturday
Night Live.
It was a golden three months aside from the climate and the complete
and utter lack of anybody my age to talk to or do anything with.
Plus
there was Super
Mario Bros. 2,
which was probably one of the few games – if not the only – that
I got on the release date.
At
first I was jarred by how different it was from the original. Of
course, none of us knew at the time that it wasn’t actually Super
Mario Bros. 2
and that it was actually Yume
Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic.
I loved how colorful it was, I loved having four characters to choose
from, and I really dug how outright strange it was. To this day Shy
Guys are my favorite video game villains and Super
Mario Bros. 2
is one of my favorite games.
I
played Super
Mario Bros. 2
more than any other game simply because I had nothing else to do.
Outside of that Summer I actually wasn’t a huge gamer. I tended to
spend my free time watching TV or staging intricate storylines with
my GI Joe toys. But in 1987 that game ruled everything.
Obviously
there were other games, though I have no idea where they came from. I
didn’t have much income and my parents never
bought me games, but somehow I ended up with a large number of
cartridges, now that I’m thinking about it. For ease of writing and
probably reading, I’m just going to bullet point some of these
(they’re all games I played when I was a kid – I’m not
including stuff I played later when I was able to check stuff out
from the video game store):
*Ninja
Gaiden
– Outside of Super
Mario Bros. 2
I think this was my favorite NES game. It’s one of the few that I
completed, and I had to do this by leaving the game paused for hours
at a time – sometimes overnight or when I had to go to school. I
still think that it’s one of the best and most compelling action
games to have come out on the system. I got really caught up in the
story of Ryu Hayabusa and his story of revenge.
*The
Legend of Kage
– I don’t think this one was necessarily popular, but I dug the
heck out of it. It was a side scroller where you played as a ninja. I
suppose it was a simplified Ninja
Gaiden,
but I enjoyed it.
*Castlevania
II: Simon’s Quest
– I didn’t play the first Castlevania
until a
compilation (I think for PlayStation?) years later. This one was my
jam, and jam I did. The fact that the game actually shifted from day
to night and that it
became more dangerous at night
blew my mind. And also made it so I couldn’t play it at night.
Seriously – the nighttime stuff freaked me out.
*Little
Nemo: The Dream Master
– Long before I had any awareness of Winsor McCay’s comic strip I
was guiding Nemo through Slumberland looking for keys. I never even
came close to finishing this one, but I enjoyed it.
*Hudson’s
Adventure Island
– This is pretty much a lousy Super
Mario Bros. knockoff,
but for some reason I liked it.
*Ghosts’n
Goblins
– I loved
this game, but I hated it so much. It was hard as crap and I couldn’t
ever get anywhere, but I adored the graphics and this knight who
ended up in his ridiculous boxer shorts when he got hit. I would
always get to this one part where you had to jump up a mountain or
something and then I would die.
![]() |
By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20684428 |
*Milon’s
Secret Castle
– First of all, the cover for this game is incredible because it
looks like something from a Rankin-Bass production. I think I might
be the only person who liked this game. Everyone I knew hated it for
some reason. A sure way to get a friend I had grown tired of to leave
was to put in Milon’s
Secret Castle.
*Solstice
– One of my favorites. This is the game is how I discovered that I
love puzzle games. You guided a little wizard through a massive maze
of 3D style rooms and had to avoid traps and solve puzzles. I never
finished it because every time I would get to the last room (or maybe
the room before the last room) the game would glitch and I would get
stuck on a hovering platform. Even though that was a huge source of
preteen rage, I still have mostly fond memories of this one.
*Shadowgate
– Speaking of puzzle games, Shadowgate
was THE BOMB. This was another favorite and would lead to my
discovery of point and click adventure games on the PC like King’s
Quest
(the greatest video game series of all time). I loved how creepy this
was. It was like living a choose your own adventure book!
*Mega
Man Series
– Give me any or all of them. I loved these fucking games. There
was no other series that provided such variety in levels and bosses.
And the brilliant mechanism that awarded you the abilities of the
bosses you defeated is one of the smartest things ever done in a
game. These were all hard as crap and I’m not sure I finished a
single one, but I loved the heck out of playing them. Blue Bomber 4
Life.
*Kid
Icarus
– Greek mythology was one of my obsessions when I was a kid. This
game had everything I wanted and totally made up for the winged
disappointment that was Legendary
Wings.
Guiding Pit through all of those crazy vertical levels and battling
pixelated versions of my favorite monsters was delightful.
*Rygar
– One of the few games where the home console version was superior
to the arcade version. The arcade version was a side-scrolling action
game, while the NES version was more akin to Metroid.
It did not have passwords or a battery, though, so this was another
one you had to leave paused for hours in order to progress. I don’t
think I ever finished it.
*Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles
– Unlike most people, I preferred the first one. I loved the big
maps and driving the Party Wagon around.
*Batman
– I loved this game because I loved all things Batman, but I think
I was terrible at it and never got anywhere.
*Duck
Tales –
One of the greatest NES games of all time. I finished it, but played
it through several times. A remastered version is available for
download from PSN and I highly recommend it. I had an awesome time
playing it with my son.
*Strider
– BAD. ASS. Everything about this game was cool. It was my first
exposure to a sword/gun combo. And that slide attack was incredible!
I also feel like Strider
looked better and ran more smoothly than most NES games.
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http://underscoopfire.com/video-game-wrestlers/ |
*Pro
Wrestling
– Finally, of
course
there’s a wrestling game on the list! This game wasn’t good at
all, but the characters were fantastic. All I ever wanted to do was
be The Amazon and bite people’s faces.
I
played more games than just these thanks to an innovative moneymaking
scheme that swept the nation – video game rental. Businesses like
Blockbuster noticed that thing I mentioned above – most video games
suck – and added game cartridges to their rental library of VHS
tapes and Laser Discs. It was a revolution. Now we could actually try
games out before buying them! You could even rent an entire console!
Notice,
if you will, that you can’t go to a store and do any of that
anymore. There’s GameFly, which I’m sure is a great service, but
the days where you could just walk into a store and browse row upon
row of video game boxes are gone. Some would probably argue that
being able to have them streamed or delivered or whatever straight
into your home is better, but I miss the tactile experience of
licking up a box and looking at the cover; which often had nothing to
do with the game (much like the VHS tapes the games shared the store
with).
For
a solid ten years the Nintendo Entertainment System was a constant
companion. It’s amazing to look at the history of the console and
see the games evolve from simplistic piles of blocks that were barely
more complex than Atari games into fast-paced, smoothly animated
action romps like Battletoads
(which I didn’t mention before because it was hard as crap and I
hated it despite loving it).
You
might be wondering why I didn’t mention classics like The
Legend of Zelda,
Metroid,
Tetris,
or whatever game floated your personal boat back in the day. I
couldn’t play them all, you guys. Some stuff fell by the wayside
for a few years. Eventually I enjoyed the adventures of Link. I still
hate Tetris.
And I discovered one of my favorite games of all time in Super
Metroid.
But
that’s a story for the next post – the 16-bit consoles and my
time at Video Game Exchange!
In the
meantime, if you enjoyed this post and have a video game reminiscence
of your own, join the
Needless
Things Podcast Facebook Group
and get in on the conversation.
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