All right if there is one thing I can’t stand is young kids today running down the NES. Yes your PS2’s and your Xbox’s may be more powerful and run all those fancy movie scenes and realistic graphics, something that the NES doesn’t but if it wasn’t for the NES there may not be Xbox’s or PS2’s at least not hear state side. And while the NES wasn’t the first home video game system, they had been around for about 10 years before the NES arrived it did save the game industry from it’s darkest hour.
Why the NES is important and a history of the crash of the 80’s (warning I bloviate)
Ok back in the days of the early 80’s the game industry was a lot like the .com’s of the late 90’s. Anybody who got in could make a lot of money making them, and like the .com’s the bubble eventually burst. Now there are several reasons why the crash happen, enough to fill an entire book and there has been books written about this time but the biggest reason is that the big mover and shaker at the time Atari screwed up with it’s stupidity.
Now if your thinking Nintendo has stupidity now with dual screen portable system and nunchuck video game controllers on systems called Wi you would be wrong, Nintendo is crazy and sometimes there craziness can bring a lot of fun. No stupid is making a video game version of a rubix cube or basing a game off an Alpo dog food commercial that is stupid. But the one two punch of bad games that put Atari and there famous Atari 2600 down for the count came in the form of Pac-Man and ET.
Now before everybody jumps on me telling me that Pac-Man is one of the greatest arcade games, let me clarified. Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 is the worst arcade port ever made proving that even a simple game like Pac-Man can be screwed up. Pac-Man was only animated to move in one direction, waka waka was turned to boing boing, and Pac-Man move through walls and ghosts half the time. Atari made more Pac-Man carts then available Atari consoles thinking the game was going to sell big. Even though Atari so 10 million carts they still had a couple million more ware house and that isn’t even talking about the returns.
Then came the KO blow from E.T., a game a lot of people feel is the worse game ever made. I wouldn’t go that far I have played worse games on current consoles then E.T. but it is note worthy that it did indeed mark the official crash with this bad game. But it wasn’t Atari fault, but the company that owned them. They promise Spielberg to have the game out by Christmas of that year without having any one at Atari to tell them it was not possible to make a game that was worth selling by that time. Despite Atari putting there best game makers on the game the fact that they had less then half the time that was usually required to make a game still shine through. With dull animation and crappy controls E.T. would go on to be a major bomb. Atari made over 5 million of the games and not many of them sold. It proves even back in the day crappy games don’t sell no matter how cute and popular the creature on the cover art is.
Atari took all the left over ET games and Pac-Man and placed them in a desert land fill, pored concrete on them and then ran them over with a steam roller, glad I was only 2 and didn’t hold any stock in the company.
Of course there biggest mistake could be when a Japanese company who only had one really big hit in the united states came and offer them there Faicom system, a system that was a major hit in Japan. All Atari had to do was market the system and give the Japanese maker a share of the profits. But Atari got into a fight over a computer port of that one big arcade game that the company had and never got to signing the paper. They pretty much lost all profitability and where sold after that.
The Japanese company of course was Nintendo and that arcade game that the big fuss was about was Donkey Kong. Nintendo now had no partner to sell games outside of Japan and even though the US market was has dead has a door nail they where confident with the right strategy they could get in and revitalize the markets. First they change the console to look like a VCR, and it wasn’t a video game system it was a Nintendo entertainment system. Then they went to New York City in the Christmas season of 85 and offer toy stores and electronic stores an offer they couldn’t refuse if the system didn’t sell Nintendo would buy back all systems at full price. It worked and the NES was a hit in New York City. This was enough to rekindle the industry and Nintendo would throw fuel in the fire when they mass release the NES. They packaged it in with one of there best selling games in Japan, Super Mario Bros. Nintendo went to control over 90% of the video game industry and spawn an era of good feelings, people didn’t played video games they played Nintendo.
So what is the NES.
The NES is an 8-bit system just like the Atari was but Nintendo was able to get more power out of there 8bits. While the Atari and game systems before it had simple pixel characters the NES had large characters. While the Atari games operated only with a screen or 2 of action the NES had large scrolling worlds for gamers to explore.
While the graphics are still 8 bit and lack some colors because of the lack of the pallet the graphics where mind blowing for the time.
The NES was a cartridge base system and the games went into the side of the unite and then where press down in order to play. The controller also had a few new things in it’s designs and that was the digital pad. While prior video game systems had large joy sticks which could be quite stiff to move around. Nintendo digital pad allowed easy movement in the 4 major directions (up, left, down, and right), and ok movement in the diagonal movements. It had two main action buttons A and B on the opposite side of the controller, and a start and select button in the middle. The early NES controllers where rectangle controllers that could poke your fingers if you held them to tight and where uncomfortable for long bouts of gaming, late in the NES life cycle though Nintendo gave the NES controllers an updated and gave them a more rounded out SNES controller look.
Accessory.
Just a few of the NES accessories.
The NES Advantage.
Now Advantage is an interesting accessory it was a huge controller design to sit on your lap while playing. Instead of a control pad it had a joy stick and it had to large A and B buttons, has well has the turbo option. The advantage was to use for shooting games like Contra and the joy stick worked better in that game because of that. Unfortunately the joy stick could slow you down on other games like Super Mario Bros so it isn’t going to replace the NES controller.
The Zapper.
Made a popular game accessory by the game bundled into Super Mario Bros called Duck Hunt, tried to be made into a popular fashion accessory by the cartoon show Captain N but that didn’t work to well. The Zapper lets you play light gun games on the NES and has mention the most popular is duck hunt where you use it to shoot ducks that come out of the brush. If you hit the duck it will react and fall to the ground. If you miss it will fly away and a dog would pop up and laugh at you. The dog is consider one of the most evil villains ever to grace the Nintendo scenes, not an NES fan around that doesn’t want the option to shoot that dog. Besides Duck hunt the Zapper could be used on other games like Bayou Billy and Hogens Alley.
Power Pad.
NES version of the dance pad and it had a few aerobics games that could be played on it. One of them that I have played is a track game that can be played by running in place on the buttons. Not has fun has the DDR games but it will still make you break a sweat.
There are a few other popular accessories for the NES but I haven’t been able to find or try them. The first is Rob a robot that came out when the NES was launch and only had a few games that used it so he was discontinued and didn’t see the light of day again intill Super Mario Kart DS. Another one was the Mattel Power Glove and while I hear it’s actually a crappy accessory it did look fairly cool.
The games.
I’ll try to keep the list relatively short but there are so many good games for the NES it’s going to be hard.
The good games.
The legend of Zelda.
If you haven’t played Zelda yet then you don’t what your missing. Zelda was one of the first games that let you explore the world and do whatever you wanted on your own time. There was a quest and a Princess to rescue of course but if you wanted to you could just explore the land and kill monsters for the fun of it. It could get a little confusing finding your way through the games harder dungeons but with 2 long quests Zelda is a classic.
Castlevania series.
Ok simple story of all 3 games is you’re a whip wielding vampire killer belonging to the Belmont family and your out to kill Dracula. The first on is a hard has heck platformer that while short on levels will take several tries to beat, and many a dozen game over screens to boot. Castlevania 2 started the Metroid RPG that the series is today has you explore the land of Transylvania collecting Drac’s body parts so you can put him back together and kill him again. And finally Castlevania 3 goes back to the original Castlevania but this time it’s a lot longer and you can switch between your whip wielding Belmont and 3 other characters you run across on your way to defeat the count.
Mega Man series.
Ok there all the same at the core kill bosses, steal there powers, use there powers on other bosses. Rinse and repeat. However on there own they are all solid platformers and action shooters. If I was to choose my favorite it would be MM3, it introduced Rush has well has gave us 8 new bosses, plus the 4 from Mega Man 2 to fight it out with.
Wario Woods.
Wario has taken over a peaceful woods and now Toad is out to blow up said woods. Wario Woods is an often over looked puzzle game mainly because it was the last game to come out for the NES, it is also the only NES game to have an ESRB rating on it. The goal of beating the stage is to blow up all the monsters in a stage with the bombs that are handed to you from a fairy on top of the stage. But unlike Dr. Mario or Tetris where you control the bombs, you control Toad who is on the ground floor. Toad can pick up bombs and monsters and move them around has needed to get to the bombs, but since he has to worry about gravity and other things it means there are a lot more obstacles then a standard puzzle game. Worse is when Wario comes in to shake things up and just basically screw you up the best he can.
Super Mario Bros 3.
Ok SMB3 is one of the best games for the NES. It took what Super Mario Bros had and then quadruple it. With a lot larger worlds, maps to pick your stage and a whole bunch of new powers including the ability to turn into a Frog or a Raccoon (Tanooke) gave Mario a bunch of new powers.
Super Mario Bros.
The game that saved the game industry from the crash and one of the best games ever released. While it does show signs of aging after more then 20 years on the market it’s still just has fun to play today has it was then. The usual rescue the Princess story line that the Mario games are known for where started with this game. Unlike other games before it which had fairly little scrolling screens, Mario gave you large scrolling levels. It also gave you 3 forms for Mario to use to fight the evil koopas. Super Mushrooms to make him big, and fire flowers to let him shoot fire balls. This game shot Mario up to super star status in the 80’s and early 90’s before Nintendo decided to throw him into every sports game they made. It’s a classic game that is worth looking into and I can’t wait for the new version on the DS coming out in May.
There are several more great NES games like Contra and Ninja Gaiden but I don’t have time to review them here.
Bad games
Despite some legendary NES games there are a few stinkers.
The Simpsons Bart Vs the Aliens.
It’s a testimony on how long the Simpsons have been around with the mere fact that they have several NES games based on them. And they all suck. But Bart Vs the Aliens is the worse one of them. Aliens have invaded Springfield and only Bart can see them and he now has to destroy them. Lousy controls, worlds, and the fact that the game doesn’t give good instructions on what the heck you have to do makes Bart VS the Spacemutants a game to stay way from.
Spiderman return of the sinister six.
Your Spiderman but from the bad sprites you think your someone in red pajamas. The music is repetive and the controls flat out stink. Worse is Spidey can take repetive hits and die from just a simple grunt beating on him without you having time to react. This is made more frustrating due to the fact Spidey only has one life. Skip this game.
Teenage Muntant Ninja Turtles.
Ok Turtles 2 and Turtles 3 for the NES falls into one of the good games I don’t have time to review. The original Ninja Turtles game though flat out stinks. You play has the turtles and your goal is to move around Manhattan and defeat the foot clan. Each stage has a map and you have to find the goal. You can move across the map by entering buildings or sewer drains. After you enter one of those an action stage takes place that is more like a platform action game, but the controls are horrible and the graphics are really ugly. It’s just better to skip this game.
Metroid.
Ok this is going to tick off a lot of people placing this here. The late Gunpei Yokoi created the series in the 80’s and it had a lot of revleoutinary ideas that are put to good use in the later franchises. But the NES is to limited to make this game any good. The colors often screw up and there is no map, and if there is one thing that the Metroid series needs it’s a good map. Worse is that the game is hard has hell and not in a good way, more like if you die in a really hard area you have to find a place where you can just shoot enemies in till you refill your energy because the game starts you out at next to zero. All the other Metroid games I played are great and even the remake for the GBA called Metroid Zero Mission is a good game, but skipped the NES one it’s just not worth the pick up.
Problems with the NES.
The NES is not an user friendly system especially if you got the old ones that are side loading. Since Nintendo didn’t want it to look like a video game system they made the cartridge side loading and it can accumulate a lot of dust inside the system. In other words a 20 year old NES flat out won’t work very well today because of that. So there is one more game to put on the bad game list. Kickboxing the NES, now this game doesn’t use the controller it has the user literally kick boxing, punting, slamming, tackling, using dynamite to get the NES started and hoping it doesn’t freeze up 10 seconds after it gets started. While it is possible to clean the inside of it and getting it back to new the fact that inside can collect dust and dirt so easily is an annoying problem. They do have a few top loading ones out there that don’t have this problem but there really hard to find.
Final Recommendation.
The NES is still a keeper and something worth getting if your into classic games. 90% of the games for the console are also kid and family friendly has well so that also makes it worth getting. The NES also has several classic games from SMB3 to the legend of Zelda. Of course the hard part is finding one that works well might be diffcult. If your interesting in playing vintage video games it might just be worth waiting to see what Nintendo is going to do with there virtual console for there next gen console if you don’t want to spend money tracking down one of these systems.
But if you do there are plenty of classic games for this old console and not all of them will be available on Nintendo’s next console.
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