NES turns 25 today! Come reminisce here!

anoffday

So the 25th anniversary of the North American launch of the NES today, so I thought it would only be appropriate to make a thread to recall our fondest memories of the NES or how you plan to celebrate this day/week/month. The system started some awesome franchieses that we love to this day including Zelda, Samus, and of course Mario. And whether you had one, didn't, loved it, hated it, or weren't even old enough to enjoy it, it changed gaming forever and helped define the hobby we love so much. I think I might go bust out Super Mario Bros. 3 today or this weekend to celebrate it's birthday. Now you're playing with power!

Chen

Blue screen of death followed by a combination of blowing and spitting into cartridges were the good old days.

TeeMan

I hope I never get tired of playing some of the classics I was over a mates house the other day who's Nintendo freakin' crazy and we played a game called Power Blade and hot damn! Where was this game when I was in my youth! I'm far too shit at NES games in my old age

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiluQeNoBT4

Check out 2:40. That's on the first stage!!

MrVyngaard

Suddenly having strong flashbacks to playing Ninja Gaiden with a NES Advantage.

Oh, my callow youth.

dirkdirden

Putting in the second game to hold down the first game in order to make it play was classic. Seriously what the fuck was wrong with the NES. No other cartridge system had that problem.

Shout out to the greats.
Dragon Warrior 1-4
Final Fantasy
River City Random
Bubble bobble
Life force
Mega man
Ninja G’
Zelda 2 (yeah that’s right fuck Zelda 1…..ok I love Zelda 1 too)
But best NES game has to be Blaster mother fucking Master.

Henroid

Oh man, it was Christmas of like 1989 or 1990 when we got our NES. We were at our grandparents' place for the holiday, where all major events for the family are held (it was a freaking huge house too, there were two living rooms with a set of double-doors between them that'd only swing open during Christmas time). We were gathered around the Christmas tree, opening gifts, and there was this big-ass box that was marked for me and my three brothers. I can't remember which of us tore it open, but I was there damn it. That star-dotted box, with NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM before me. Holy shit. I had already been playing video games via the Atari, and in my head I screamed, "MORE VIDEO GAMES YAY."

My brothers, cousins, and I pretty much had a "screw this" attitude to the rest of the gift opening session and ran to the other living room where the TV was, and after hooking it up partook in some Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt. This same story pretty much repeated a year or so later when we got Super Mario Bros. 3. Screw presents - to the TV room, hook up the NES, and just let our eyes glaze over to good times.

anoffday

This would be a good thread to also recommend NES games other may have missed like TeeMan did with Power Blade. I'm not sure many people missed this one, but how awesome was duck tales? Remember when video games based on tv shows and movies didn't always suck?

maximumzero

dirkdirden wrote: »

Putting in the second game to hold down the first game in order to make it play was classic. Seriously what the fuck was wrong with the NES. No other cartridge system had that problem.

The "pins" that connected to the NES cartridge would wear out over time, both due to corrosion and the pins themselves getting bent more and more outwards over time, thus making poorer and poorer contact with the cartridges as time went on.

Fortunately a $10 replacement part is easy to install and pretty much any NES can be fixed to like-new working condition by doing so.

Edit: Also Nintendo's piracy lockout chip was extremely temperamental, often exacerbated by the poor cartridge connection.

Mugenmidget

Kick Master was an awesome NES game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OjwbrFkUaY

I really dug Pat the NES Punk's marathon, he played his collection of NES games (pretty sure he owns every US NTSC game except Stadium Events, it was 750+ games I believe) for around 30 hours starting Saturday. Great way to celebrate the 25th anniversary while raising money for Child's Play and showing off the entire US library.

HyperAquaBlast

I got an NES in 1993 in 3rd grade used from a guy who went on to train for the Olympics. My dad paid $85 for it and it came with:

Mario Bros 3
Legend of Zelda 1&2
TMNT the Arcade game
Gauntlet
Cystalis
Metroid
Rollergames

That dude had amazing taste which in turn gave me the bests tastes. I will always wonder who that man was and what happened to him.

Also once I got the NES my life was ruined by video games. Yep.

Ragnar Dragonfyre

My 23 year old NES. I got it for my 4th birthday after my cousins got it for Christmas and I fell in love with SMB. Best birthday ever? Oh yes.

I just brought it back from my cottage where I had kept it for a loooong time. It's seen a lot of use over the years, but it's still running. I bought that stand for it recently at Value Village for $2.50.

Here's my collection. I really need to get around to setting these up on the shelf proper.

Here's to another 25 NES. I bet you'll still be running even then.

EDIT: I was looking at the picture and realized SMB3 was missing... panicked, then realized it was in the system. Phew!

maximumzero

Hah, I got mine at the age of 4 as well, in 1989 however.

It's still hooked up in the living room. I'm gonna go snap a picture later.

Mugenmidget

Indy Heat was fantastic, especially in multiplayer (4 players!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OwrcBNcBBI

Also a guy here in Texas helped modify an NES Four Score for me so it could play Famicom Four-Way games. This means with Game Genie codes I can enjoy 3P in Stinger (cool Konami shooter, localization of a Twinbee game) and 4P in Super Dodgeball (don't have that one yet). I also use it for 4P Kakutou Densetsu, which is a really cool Kunio game. There's some other nifty 4P Kunio games that I'd like to check out at some point.

BlackDragon480

Ah, the NES, my first real digital crush.

My dad picked one up for our family for Christmas of '85 (was a Deluxe Set that came with the Zapper, Rob-the-Robot, Gyromite, and a Duck-Hunt cartridge), and my gaming journey began. Whilst we had an Intellevision prior to that and my dad was a text-adventure junkie on our Kaypro computer, the NES was the first thing to really get its hooks into a 3-1/2 year old me. From the first time the dog laughed it's ass off at my inability to shoot ducks, I was hooked.

Although to this day I still haven't beaten the original Super Mario Bros.

Buddies

I remember watching my older brother play Mike Tyson's Punch Out. My younger brother and I would go into the other room when he would get up to Bald Bull and Soda Popinski, because we were bad luck for him you see.


I am grateful that my brother woke up at 6am one morning to find me playing TMNT. I had woken up at like 4:30 or 5am and started playing, because that was the best game ever. When he came into the room I was in the Technodome already. He then witnessed me beating the game, and thank god because noone ever believes me until he backs me up. And even then They thought I was making it up when I told them the last level you fight kangaroos and spacemen. But I showed them years later on an emulator when I got to the room before shredder, but I cannot get past that damn hallway where two spacemen come after you and there is no room to jump. How does a 5 year old me beat a game that I can't beat today?

cooljammer00

The lore in my family is that my mother went into labor with me and my uncle gave my brother and sister the NES to keep them busy while the adults were running around.

I think that makes us fraternal twins or something.

Mugenmidget

Here's my systems and games, see which ones you're able to recognize:

UncleSporky

I am a crazy NES fan.

Back in the day my uncle worked at a rental place and would buy tons of NES games and rent them out; this meant he had a big supply that he could lend me as well. While I didn't own a lot of NES games, at maximum I was borrowing 40 games from him. I got to play all the classics like Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior. When I was in middle school I sort of outgrew them and begrudgingly gave them back to him.

Then I met this kid on the bus who had a bunch of old NES games in his attic that he told me he didn't care about, and he'd give them to me for $5 (I have no idea how the conversation got to that point). It included Zelda, Silent Service (a submarine sim), and Bart vs. the Space Mutants. I don't remember how many it was, but it brought my total up to 21 NES games which was all I had for years.

Just two days ago, my place of employment had its yearly auction where they sell old things from local schools that don't need them anymore. I went over with a coworker of mine to pick through it before auction; we essentially get first dibs, the idea is that one school's junk might be another's treasure. It's mainly for recirculating useful stuff, but it's accepted that we can pull some things for our own use as well.

My friend started yelling for me to come over. I went and looked and he had found three boxes of old video games, including a NES with two controllers, two Advantages, two Max controllers and the Zapper; a SNES with its controllers and Mario Paint mouse; 8 SNES games and 43 NES games, most of them with their manuals. Yoink. Pretty excited about that, I still need to split it up with him but he mainly wants the SNES stuff.

In recent years I kind of rediscovered the NES and have read about it in-depth, the crazy tricks and things they had to do to get the games working. Currently I am in the process of making my own NES game(s), though the process is really slow. I have long gaps where I don't do anything, but I haven't given up. I even have a flash cart so I can test out my game on the actual hardware (and it works great).

Adus

I'm older than the NES.. Kinda weird to think about. I actually never owned one but a friend of mine did. I'd go over all the time to play Super Mario Bros. It got me started in gaming. Tried to convince my mom to get me one. Got me a Gameboy instead. At the time I was disappointed cause I didn't want a tiny (at the time...) thing instead of a full system but looking back it was a pretty good deal because I had some awesome games for that thing. I miss Link's Awakening. It's the best Zelda, I don't care what anyone says.

Mugenmidget

Radical, Sporky, looking forward to your games!

UncleSporky

Also, here's a new NES game a guy made recently and is currently selling, based on I Want to Be The Guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQzmvefrl5w

Here's a NES game that another guy I know is working on, and I'm really impressed by it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFoBdeLDVc8

And here are two underappreciated NES games that I love. The first is Gun Nac, a space shooter that is just really solid with a nice 16-bit gen style weapon upgrade system:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYzBwgRd-zg

And the second is Shatterhand, a side scrolling beat-em-up/Megaman style game with awesome graphics for the NES and a fun powerup system:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ-42KqgwXE

Variable

I love videogames

and I love penny-arcade

and it all started with the NES

to this day I'm a Nintendo whore though I also dabble with everyone else. really I'm just a whore with a soft spot for Nintendo.

but yeah videogames woooo! NESNESNES

Mugenmidget

I bought that Battle Kid game, it's the one in pink bubble wrap in my games/systems shots. And damn it's hard hahaha...

The guy who made it (Sivak) was at the convention I bought it at (SGC 2010). Nice kid!

Monger

One time I landed the plane in Top Gun.

One time I beat the fucking dam level in TMNT.

I can prove neither of these things, and I'm only mostly certain that I hallucinated neither.

wakkawa

The guardian legend was always my favorite game. So good.

Henroid

You know what game is the devil? Captain Skyhawk. I actually made it a fair amount of ways into the game when I was a kid.

Talkc

I was 2 years old when they bought me the NES.

The only thing i knew how to play for about 2 years was duck hunt. then i started learning Super Mario Bros. Then Kickle Cubicle. Then TLOZ.

Then My last game for the system was the amazing Kirby's Adventure, which to this day has the most special place in my heart as the 'best game i ever played'.


My NES still works. I cant play Duck Hunt anymore without thinking of my grandfather who taught me how to play. It just brings back the best memories.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dghs2GCqpl0

Then there is the Orange Ocean Selection Screen Music from Kirby's Adventure.

A song that brings tears to my eyes every time i hear it.

anoffday

UncleSporky wrote: »

I am a crazy NES fan.

Back in the day my uncle worked at a rental place and would buy tons of NES games and rent them out; this meant he had a big supply that he could lend me as well. While I didn't own a lot of NES games, at maximum I was borrowing 40 games from him. I got to play all the classics like Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior. When I was in middle school I sort of outgrew them and begrudgingly gave them back to him.

Then I met this kid on the bus who had a bunch of old NES games in his attic that he told me he didn't care about, and he'd give them to me for $5 (I have no idea how the conversation got to that point). It included Zelda, Silent Service (a submarine sim), and Bart vs. the Space Mutants. I don't remember how many it was, but it brought my total up to 21 NES games which was all I had for years.

Just two days ago, my place of employment had its yearly auction where they sell old things from local schools that don't need them anymore. I went over with a coworker of mine to pick through it before auction; we essentially get first dibs, the idea is that one school's junk might be another's treasure. It's mainly for recirculating useful stuff, but it's accepted that we can pull some things for our own use as well.

My friend started yelling for me to come over. I went and looked and he had found three boxes of old video games, including a NES with two controllers, two Advantages, two Max controllers and the Zapper; a SNES with its controllers and Mario Paint mouse; 8 SNES games and 43 NES games, most of them with their manuals. Yoink. Pretty excited about that, I still need to split it up with him but he mainly wants the SNES stuff.

In recent years I kind of rediscovered the NES and have read about it in-depth, the crazy tricks and things they had to do to get the games working. Currently I am in the process of making my own NES game(s), though the process is really slow. I have long gaps where I don't do anything, but I haven't given up. I even have a flash cart so I can test out my game on the actual hardware (and it works great).

That's awesome. Keep us updated.

Also, what kind of awesome school had SNES and NES games?

UncleSporky

Mugenmidget wrote: »

I bought that Battle Kid game, it's the one in pink bubble wrap in my games/systems shots. And damn it's hard hahaha...

The guy who made it (Sivak) was at the convention I bought it at (SGC 2010). Nice kid!

Yeah, I didn't bother with it because it's not my sort of game, I'd rather experience something easy but beautiful than something that makes you tear your hair out. I hope miau gets his game out someday, it reminds me of a Knytt game which would be perfect.

anoffday wrote: »

Also, what kind of awesome school had SNES and NES games?

I have no idea, and I have no indication of where it came from, and I don't necessarily care.

Possibly a "challenged" kids' teaching area where sometimes they are just being kept busy, or possibly someone brought it in for something after school and forgot about it. Doubtless it languished in somebody's closet for years.

A lot of the manuals have codes and such written in the back.

buddman

I'm celebrating the [H]ard way.

Man do I feel old...

jclast

The NES was what got my whole family into video games. My dad would play SMB with my brother and me, and my whole family would go downstairs to hang out and play Rollerball. My dad kicked ass at RC Pro AM as well. I could never get past the trucks but he would play for hours and have more trophies than I could count.

Of all my games on it though I most have a love/hate relationship with TMNT. I know I never beat that game, but I loved to play the hell out of it. I am convinced that game is what cemented Donatello as the best turtle to me.

UncleSporky

Because I don't have enough posts in this thread yet, here is a raycaster another guy I know made for the NES:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po69zgqyFWM&feature=related

No tricks or anything, it runs on hardware. But it's really processor intensive and would be tough to turn into a game with sprites on the screen too.

And here is a popular Japanese video of "shadow art" called Bad Apple, recreated on the NES:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqZfqNYHyug

(running on actual hardware [vidurl="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZehH55i_wg"]here[/vidurl])

anoffday

Have you ever seen those 8 bit Christmas NES games that play Christmas songs and show a Christmas scene? Do they still make those? I remember they were making them every year for awhile. I have to pick one up this Christmas if they are.

UncleSporky

The 2008 and 2009 ones are discontinued, but there's still time for a 2010 one to surface...no guarantee though.

I don't know if I should link the site that sells modern NES stuff because some of their products do technically enable you to pirate NES games on NES hardware, which are currently being sold on the Wii VC. Zero tolerance policy at PA and all that.

Shadowfire

I got my NES for Christmas in 87. My parents were adamant that they would never buy me one, didn't like them, etc. This was weird since my mother and I played all of the King's/Space/Police Quest games together, and she'd always let me take the day off when a new King's Quest game came out so we could play together.

Anyway, we went to my grandparents that year to celebrate Christmas. We lived in New York at the time, and they were in Illinois. Unknown to me, the system was in a suit case right next to me in the van the whole drive there. The dog was sleeping on it. They bought it something like two months before. So much happiness.

Also strangely, my grandparents really hated the system, but my grandfather helped pick the games. With some help from a clerk, he bought Mario 2 and Zelda 2 as the first games. Then, on Christmas Day, he went to the video store and rented Legendary Wings and Mega Man. For a guy who hated video games, the guy had great taste.

Since no one's mentioned it so far...

Bullio

I learned to read primarily thanks to the SMB3 guide.

I still haven't forgiven my parents for never buying me TMNT2. I've played the crap out of it since on XBLA, but I still get a bit bummed when I remember how they ruined my whole childhood by not buying me the NES version.

UnbreakableVow

Rescue: The Embassy Mission was the sweetest game ever

The Tom Clancy game before Tom Clancy games were ever even thought of

UnbreakableVow

As for childhood memories, according to both my parents, I beat the original SMB when I was 3. I don't really remember things from that early of an age. So many great games. I really loved this one Disney game, I forget what it was called but you pretty much just explored the Magic Kingdom while beating all the rides. Great stuff.

Typically with every console I own, my mom and dad both end up really enjoying one game. For my dad it was 1942, for my mom it was Rainbow Islands.

Henroid

Did anyone here manage to beat Legacy of the Wizard when they were a kid? Followup: Do you make it a habit to be a liar-liar-pants-on-fire?

Also fuck Legend of Kage. Probably one of the most irritating games. Short, difficult, and not rewarding at all. Especially since the girl keeps getting kidnapped repeatedly within 10 minute spans.

Olivaw

I played my first game on a family friend's NES

It was Mario Bros.

I was two

If I had never played it, I don't really know who I'd be today!

I mean, probably still pretty awesome, but different

Henroid

Olivaw wrote: »

I played my first game on a family friend's NES

It was Mario Bros.

I was two

If I had never played it, I don't really know who I'd be today!

I mean, probably still pretty awesome, but different

Bah, when I was your age I was playing the Commodore 64!