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20 Years of NES
Twenty years ago, the NES changed the face of U.S. gaming. All this week, 1up.com has a series of features celebrating the anniversary of the Nintendo Entertainment System. From the site: "When the NES launched, America hated videogames. Well, sort of. The Atari 2600 had upset folks by flooding the market with bad software and, at first, retailers were reluctant to sell another system. But the NES was a hit, controlling a healthy 90 percent of the U.S. home videogame industry at the peak of its popularity."
Is it just me, or was the target of the link devoid of anything except ads?
I thought I'd found the path to the rest of the story when I got to this sentance:
And take a minute this week to unpack your dusty NES from its storage closet and go for a run-and-jump trip down memory lane.
there was link on "memory" (which has since disappeared) that went to dell.com's RAM catalog. Ugh.
But the NES was a hit, controlling a healthy 90 percent of the U.S. home videogame industry at the peak of its popularity
And I still have the bad report cards to prove it!
I'm officially OLD! :(
I went from Atari 2600 straight to GameCube. Both are (were) great! I'm looking forward to my first experience with Zelda!
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
And we all know why don't we
Ah yes, the good old days of gaming. Back when games had to be fun rather than bloody. I always found it nice that Nintendo took a solid stance about the family playability of games. It meant that the games had to be sold on the basis of something other than blood and gore. While there were quite a few Nintendo games that sold because they were either a) cheap or b) had a movie license (Karate Kid anyone?), a large number of the games for the old system were just good. Nintendo's "Seal of Quality" program came out, it helped keep the overall quality of games high, again because they had to be competitive on something other than shock factor. Not that the graphics of the time allowed much of that anyway...
:-(
When the SuperNES came out, it wasn't long before the issue of blood and gore came up, especially in the light of the SuperNES's new graphics capabilities. But Nintendo pushed back at game creators and kept that era of gaming fun. Even more so because Nintendo didn't approve games that didn't meet their playtester approval.
Then the Playstation came out, and despite its technical superiority, it sucked. But they had the Blood and Gore (and Loading...), and plenty of boring 3D games that only sold due to shock factor. But eventually Sony pushed long enough and hard enough, and now we have the games of today. Even Nintendo gets into the whole "adult" thing with their postively revolting Conq the Squirrel game. Thanks Sony.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Top 5 Favorite NES Games
Final Fantasy
Solar Jetman
Super Mario 2
River City Ransom
Super Dodge Ball
===
I can't count how many hours I spent playing these games, sadly... mostly because I wasn't keeping track when I was 8-14, but also because it was a godawful long time.
NES is dead! Long live NES!
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
Gotta love the NES. Mine has been hooked up ever since I got it for my 7th birthday.
It actually gets more play time than my Gamecube, PS2, or PSP...
"By the end of the 1980s the courts found Nintendo guilty of anti-trust activities because it had abused its relationship with third party developers and created a monopoly in the gaming industry by not allowing developers to make games for any other platforms." -- Wikipedia
All the fanboys seem to ignore that Nintendo broke the law repeatedly. When Microsoft does it, you guys pee your fake-lawyer trousers. When Nintendo does it, you pee your fanboy pants.
Frankly, Nintendo did more to destroy proper homebrew gaming than a thousand Ataris helped to establish it. I look forward to their doom thanks to the GamePark open handheld gaming platform.
I'm not Seth Finkelstein. I still speak the truth.
Although I don't play it often (that's what emus are for), I still have my NES hooked up, and still plays flawlessly. Oh the fond memories I've had throughout the years with that system. Only system better was the SNES in 1991. Ah memories.
Top 15 games as posted by 1up:
15. Dragon Warrior
14. Duck Hunt
13. StarTropics
12. Bionic Commando
11. Zelda II
10. Duck Tales
9. Super Mario Bros. 2
8. Final Fantasy
7. Mega Man 2
6. Contra
5. Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!
4. River City Ransom
3. Super Mario Bros.
2. The Legend of Zelda
1. Super Mario Bros. 3
I'm very weary of articles, especially on boingboing.net, that pitch Mario Bros. as the original videogame. You all should be making fan art of Yar's Revenge, Pitfall and River Raid.
Actually just got this link in an e-mail about 2 min ago.. Nintendo Choir
cheesy but well done
Losers whine about their best, Winners go home to fuck the prom queen
While the article details about NES (which I owned including the Atari 2600), I remember the day I went out and bought the SNES.
I faked a sickness and fooled my parents, allowing me to stay home from school. Once they left, it was a quick ride to the local Woolworth store (remember those stores?) and a $200 purchase later I was at home playing Super Mario World.
My parents didn't have a clue.
I got the NES for Christmas. It came with Super Mario Brothers and I also got Zelda. I must have played those games for 100+ hours the first Month. I spent so much time with my NES that my parents would make me go out and play with my friends and even signed me up for sports and swimming lessons etc so I would get outside. I thank my parents that I didn't just veg out, but still enjoy a good marathon game time from time to time. Ahhh, the good old days!
Generation Trance: What generation are you?
I noticed the article mentioned the cheesy lame cartoon series, Super Mario Bros. Super Show. You can watch that online on Yahooligans! TV for free. Even The Legend of Zelda cartoons are there.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Monday - The comeback kid: Commemorating 20 years of playing with power
Tuesday - NES turns 20: EGM celebrates two decades of NES Mania
Wednesday - Solid Gold: You picked 'em, we praise 'em. 1UP's top 15 NES games.
And for the bandwidth savvy:
Monday Tuesday Wednesday
The Atari 2600 had upset folks by flooding the market with bad software
What? I had an Atari 2600 and I don't remember being "upset at bad software" at all. Was everyone else upset and I just somehow missed it?
AccountKiller
I find it hard to believe that Tecmo Super Bowl didn't make their top 15 list of games. Despite being the most unrealistic sports game I've ever played, it also manages to be the most pure fun.
I think the influx of high quality sports games attracted a whole new class of people to gaming, the "Adult Gamers." These are the folks that have money to spend but only play games casually with their friends.
Whichever system had the best NBA 2K or Madden game won the pack. The others followed suit.
But the NES was a hit, controlling a healthy 90 percent of the U.S. home videogame industry at the peak of its popularity
But 90%!?! Clearly they had a monopoly and should have been shutdown! Where were the Antitrust advocates then? My guess is playing video games. Even Microsoft doesn't have a 90% market share of personal computers.
To this day I am still wondering why I need more than A, B, Select, and Start. Anything else is redundant and useless. And on that note... up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-b-a-b-a-sele ct-start. Let's go mates!
UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT BA BA SELECT START or if you had no friends: UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT BA BA START
Frankly, Nintendo did more to destroy proper homebrew gaming than a thousand Ataris helped to establish it. I look forward to their doom thanks to the GamePark open handheld gaming platform.
Where can I buy GP2X at retail in Fort Wayne, Indiana (pop 200K)? How many hundred thousand GP2X units will be sold in North America? Is it worth it to port a game to GP2X given the system's expected small user base?
I can't wait until next year, when my NES can finally play Tapper!
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
...hated game consoles... should have bene the text. Look at the 2600. With like 3 ok games none even came close the the arcade equivilant. Up until the NES there was nothing good.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Dude, Blaster Master has got to be the best NES game ever, hands down. Even beats Mario 3, which was amazing.
Blaster Master was the best.
Also, numbers 2-5:
2. Mario 3
3. MegaMan 3
4. Metroid
5. Zelda I (or maybe II, they were both great)
Anyone remember 3-D World Runner, with the 3d glasses? What a tripped out game that was...
With the first link, the chain is forged.
Buckner & Garcia have an official site for the Pac Man Fever album. They sell a CD that is a newer recording of the original material. I bought it for nostalgia value. I have the original LP also but I no longer have a way to play it.
SYS 49152
I know this is blasphemy here, but watch G4's Icons episode about the Video Game Industry. They discuss the crash of the Video Game market in the early 80's, and how the release of the NES brought the industry back to life.
Did anyone ever beat Jaws? It's like almost 20 years later and I still can't kill Jaws at the end. Everyone I know has experienced the same. It's impossible. I've even tried looking up walkthrus and still he doesn't die. We've tried 15 different cartridges, still same. I can't die happy until I beat that game. Time to go summon the game genie.
PacMan was prior to the Video Game Crash. After the Video Game Crash, all the people who'd spent MegaBucks on Atari, Intellivison, and Coleco systems were left out in the cold with highly expensive hardware and no software to buy. A LOT of consumers became rather despondant over this, thus the line "Americans hated video games." It was so bad that Nintendo called the console an "Entertainment System" and marketed a Robot with it to keep people from thinking of it as Another Video Game Console(TM).
Originally, Nintendo was also going to market a disk drive (which was available for the Fanicom in Japan) so that people could use it as a home PC. As it turned out, the market accepted the Nintendo well enough that they eventually ditched the whole "home computer" idea.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
20 Years of NES
There are quite a few people nowadays, who have grown up with NES systems in their time, keeping the music alive in various forms. For instance:
..and as a side mention:
Minibosses
Redefined - Nintendo A Cappella
All Your Bass A Cappella
http://www.pressplayontape.com/
You and your fancy Pac-Man, friggin Pong was the first out-of-the-door smash hit.
In the book "High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games", Nolan Bushnell recalls taking the prototype Pong unit to a local bar, the bar called him back the same night and told him it was broken, when the problem was investiaged it turned out that the coinbox was full and was jamming the game.
Pong went on to make millions (1 quarter a pop, in the early 70s yet) way before consoles became successful.
Dang kids n' their Pac-Man revoloution crap!
that the user review of Zelda 2 got replaced by the review of StarTropics?
2600 games didn't have to be like the arcade because our expectations were not yet so damned high. I had great fun playing the 2600 versions of frogger, missile command, pac-man, river raid, jungle hunt, and others.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
The Atari 2600 had upset folks by flooding the market with bad software and, at first, retailers were reluctant to sell another system. But the NES was a hit, controlling a healthy 90 percent of the U.S. home videogame industry at the peak of its popularity.
I don't remember anyone being upset by the quality of games on the Atari. Everyone I know, myself included, was amazed they they could have Pong, Pitfall, Frogger, Centipede, and Asteroids right on their own TV. It didn't matter that they sucked, because we had nothing to compare them to! They were new, innovative, and best of all you didn't need a pocket full of quarters and a ride to the mall. Maybe adults were unhappy, but I distinctly remember my friends and I having to wait (im)patiently while their dads would finish that last game of Pong (before the inevitable throwing of the paddle and the obligitory "God damnit, piece of $#@% fsking...!").
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
...Link's first adventure on the NES was a milestone for home game consoles, offering the deep gameplay of a computer game with a more streamlined interface...
...and yet the image shown above the caption is that from his second adventure.
Hope be with ye,
Cyan
The smart folk simply breathed hot air into them, thus forming a little condensation mositure onto the cartridge slot contacts.
worked every time.
still begs me to find her a NES system so she can play her Dr.Mario and other games she was more addicted to then I being addicted to Final Fantasy or Dragon Warrior. Although I've set her up with nesticle and a generaic d-pad, it's not a Nintendo controller so she doesn't like it.
NES was a family tradition with us, after dinner we'd all sit around and play duck hunt or Mario Brothers.
*DrugCheese rants*
Nobody stopped gaming, they just changed where they gamed. The early to mid 80s was when home computers first became affordable. Everybody I knew turned off their Atari/Coleco/Intellivision game console and started gaming on their Atari/Commodore/TRS-80 computer system instead.
I had a normal childhood until the NES came along and ruined my life. Specifically the introduction of the Legend of Zelda franchise. I would play that game until the controllers were stripped from my tiny cramped fingers. I would play with the sound off when my parents fell asleep and fall asleep in school thinking about it. That system started me on a life long video game obsession that continues today and always seems to hack at my GPA thank the heavens I ever got to college, now I just have to finish.
To quote Walter Neff, the evil hero in "Double Indemnity", "Do I laugh now, or wait 'til it gets funny?"
does it make me weird that I liked that game? Well I wasn't terribly good, I could never get that far on anything higher than easy. Come to think of it, I do recall it being buggy and sometimes it was impossible to finish. And ET opening his mouth to fly.... hmm Ok now that I think about it, it sucked.
Atari 2600 sucked?!
Pac Man. Asteroids. Frogger. Donkey Kong. Enduro. Yes, Circus Circus.
'nuff said
When I was 7, I figured out how to unlock the hidden sex scene inside of Super Mario Bros.
That three-some between Mario, Lugi, and the Princess was hot.
Needless to say, my mom threw out my NES system.
Do what I say, cuz I said it.
-Meatwad
Everyone get on now and listen to it!
I've got Pac Maaaaaaan Feeeever! YEAH!
It's foolish, revisionist history to say that Americans hated videogames. Does anyone remember Pac Man fever? The album? It was a phenomenon. There was a veritable ton of Pac Man schwag (cheesy merchandise like bubble gum dispensers, keychains, Rubik's cube knockoffs, etc.) showing strong evidence of video games' pre-Nintendo dominance in American culture.
I was 14 or 15 around the time and remember it well. A few years before, everyone loved games. Every family had an Atari. Every mall had an arcade. EVERYONE played games. Even parents. And girls. Then, there was a crash, for whatever reason-- most likely because even the best games were limited and got boring fast. In 1984-5, if you liked video games, you owned a Commodore 64. The days of families-- or really anyone but pasty-faced geeks-- buying consoles and games was very much over. That is, until Nintendo revolutionized the market. Their games were light years beyond previous generation because they weren't just three screens of action that repeated until you died, they were fun and interesting worlds that could be explored. And unlike the typical Atari game that just got faster and faster on the same screen until you inevitably died, Nintendo games could be beaten and won.
As for revisionism-- I don't think there's any shortage of Pac Man or Atari nostalgia, especially on the web. 32-in-1 Atari joysticks sell by the millions and I see 20-somethings in vintage game shirts all the time. Are you really trying to suggest that no one remembers that era?
I'm very weary of articles, especially on boingboing.net, that pitch Mario Bros. as the original videogame. You all should be making fan art of Yar's Revenge, Pitfall and River Raid.
I haven't seen many articles like that, but I'll believe you. But I think this is a key to why Nintendo is so beloved-- you don't give a shit about Yar and why he wants revenge, or what the River Raid plane's mission was. You don't really even care why Pac Man does whatever he does. Nintendo's games and characters-- Zelda, Mario, Metroid, etc.-- have a story and a soul. They may look primitive now, but at the time they felt like cartoons brought to life.
It was so bad that Nintendo called the console an "Entertainment System" and marketed a Robot with it to keep people from thinking of it as Another Video Game Console(TM).
Yeah.. What was up with that robot?
As a robot-crazed geek kid, I was hugely impressed by the Nintendo robot in their TV ads back in the 80's. I never owned one though, and never met anyone who did. Did anyone here have one? Was there more than one game for it? And how much fun was it? Or, as my adult mind tells me.. how badly did it suck?
"It's foolish, revisionist history to say that Americans hated videogames. Does anyone remember Pac Man fever?"
You named everything that had to do with Pac-Man other than the 2600 port, and it was that game that helped America to learn to hate video games.
Pac-Man for the 2600 sucked long hard pixelated bars.
I'm very weary of articles, especially on boingboing.net, that pitch Mario Bros. as the original videogame. You all should be making fan art of Yar's Revenge, Pitfall and River Raid.
And I'm very weary of people that pitch games like Yar's Revenge, Pitfall, and River Raid as the original videogame. You all should be making fan art of Pong and Tunnel Adventure!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
is blowing in the carts and jamming them down (quite violently) repeatedly to get it working. I also had to shove a second cart in there just to get it working on some carts.
If there was an award for shitty design I would bet the NES wins it hands down.
The NES must have done something right. Even *my* "Go play outside" parents broke down and bought me one. It's the only console I've ever owned, in fact. Still have it somewhere.
I wouldn't necessarily categorize these as "great"; I just have really fond memories of them.
California Games
Contra
Dick Tracy
Double Dragon
Double Dribble
Excite Bike
Legendary Wings
Little Nemo
Mega Man
Mike Tyson's Punch-Out
Ninja Gaiden
Paperboy
Skate or Die
Super Mario Bros. 2
Tecmo Bowl
Tiny Toon Adventures
Track and Field (WITH POWERPAD!)
Wolverine
Errr, I'm confused. If there was a lock-out chip, why do I recall playing Tengen games on the NES that weren't liscensed by Nintendo. I belive there were several Tengen games. Also I remeber the HARDEST GAME EVER: The Adventures of Dizzy. It was released unauthorized by Codemasters. I remeber there was a little switch in the back of the cart, and if the game didn't work in one position, you flicked it in the other.
Here I found a link that gives a bit of a run down between all the different unauthorized carts that were manufactured for the NES. Have a look.
Vidgame.Net
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
yeah, so the NES was da bomb, everything from the perfect rectangular controllers to the sexy graphics.
But, the connector for the cartridges?
the engineer that designed that should be shot and killed.
you know how it went... blow on the cartridge, shove it into the NES, push down, hit power, nope, didn't work.
so you try a different method... be very gentle, slowly insert the cartridge, slower push down, hit power, still nothing.
every person had a different technique.
some said to put the cartridge in with the power already on.
but when it did work... hell yeah.
NINTENDO? Bah, my PSP is much better!!!
Oh, wait.. 20 years? I wasn't even born then...
Dude, you missed nothing! The 2600 flat-out fucking rocked! The Nintendopussies just have larger numbers, having grown-up just behind us and snatched up the cheap foreign crap that was flooding the market because that very market was just proven by an innovative domestic firm. Sure, Atari got a little greedy then, but even that was instructional to all the other major companies who have since mimicked such cheap-commercial games with increasing savvy. Thanks for the fun, Atari!
Ohh man, ET was so baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.
NES is still alive, I'm making new carts for it. :)
It was 10 years ago today I borke my addiction to that god damned console =P Any1 wanta play sum duck hunter wit' me?
public class null extends java applet { System.out.print ("Tabula Rasa"); }
For anybody who grew up with a Nintendo this is definitely worth a listen... Super Mario Brothers Theme by Boston Pops - John Williams.
Let's not forget the fact of arcades - I spent way too many quarters there as a youth. While arcades have never really died (although there for a while it seemed that arcades had nothing but fighting games), the NES was the first system to really bring "arcade level" gaming to the consumer home market (although, one could argue the Vectrex did that, too). So, in the time between the fall of the Atari console and the rise of the NES, we had regular arcades, and home computers for everything else.
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
BTW, my top 5 games:
YEs!
KID ICARUS: greateSt G4M3 3v3|2!!!!111
we need a part tW0
http://nesdev.parodius.com/ is a center for NES development. I highly recommend it! 6502 assembly can be a lot of fun once you get the hang of it.
I was raised by Nintendo, now I have no social skills or friends!
Referring to SMB and the establishment of the platform genre, they mention - "No longer were players trapped inside a single, claustrophobic room..." What about Pitfall?
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, [select,] start
Isn't it wonderful that 20 years later, those low res, obsolete games which many of would want to play as a trip down memory lane are STILL COPYRIGHTED, and will be for another 100 years or so?
Intellectual property laws: they work so you don't have to.
The controller is innovative, but I wonder if it will really be the "revolution" promised? Will players like having the complex system this controller offers? I don't know. Furthermore, what will the actual system look like? We will have to wait and see, but it is likely to play, yet again, on a normal and boring (although HD) television set.
You know what would have been a true "Revolution"?
A little while back a homemade CGI animation "advertisement" video floated around, purporting to show the Nintendo "RevolutiON". It turned out to be nothing more than a very well made fan video (very well made) - but the gaming system it showed, if it could be built (or something similar to it) - would have been nothing short of revolutionary.
In short, a home VR gaming rig, unlike anything the the home market has seen, this side of the (never made it to market) Sega VR system or (the flop) Nintendo Virtual Boy.
Unfortunately, due to the failure of the Virtual Boy, we will likely never see a system like this appear, at least from Nintendo (and maybe from nobody). Due to so many issues (simulator sickness/liability and affordable tracking systems being the main two reasons), such a system would be difficult for any company to bring out, but Nintendo has the Virtual Boy as an "albatross" to boot, keeping it from releasing such a "console".
We will likely never see a controller/HMD combo pack from a 3rd party, either - this was tried in the mid to late 1990's, and fell flat on its face (the technology wasn't there for a price that people were willing to pay, and the systems then in existence weren't ready for that level, either). I find it curiously odd, though - we have so many great first-person shooters and other first-person games, but taking them to the level of full-blown immersion doesn't seem to be something that gamers want. I tend to wonder why this is - the ability to "be in the game" - fooling your visual and auditory senses to the point where it feels like you are there - I would think that any gamer of today would be striving to have this, whether by commercial or homebrew means. But such a course doesn't even appear to be something gamers are thinking about...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I never could get into the NES, because the graphics were so damned ugly compared to the coin arcades. At least the PC's of the day from Apple, Atari, and Commodore could begin to approximate arcade graphics. I only came to appreciate consoles with the 16-bit generation.
It is clear in retrospect that Nintendo produced some remarkably creative games for that ugly little system--but I still can't stand to play it.
I was never able to clear Metal Gear 2. That last boss was fuckin' impossible. Imagine fighting an enemy who's only weakness is the bottom of his feet. Now picture you trying to get him to walk over mines you place, but he never does. Bingo.
Legacy of the Wizard? Don't get me started on that. That was a game you could truly become irrecovocably stuck in; that's stuck as in reset-the-unit-and-start-again stuck.
Lots of memories, especially my long days of coming home after shoplifting a half dozen games on my best days. My accomplice did equally well. Ah, such mischievious little urbanite pups were we.
- IP
There are a few hardware projects out there, for increasing your enjoyment of your NES. One is a special game cart that lets you write ROM images to a NES cart, called the FunkyFlashCart, and then you can play ROM on a real NES. Because it uses flash for holding the ROMs, ROMs can be written many times to the cart. Similarly, it uses a CPLD in order to recreate the many different circuit-board types used in NES games. This is necessary because NES games lack a strong distinction between hardware and software common in modern games, i.e., NES games each include their own circuit board and ICs which must also be accurately recreated along with the game's ROM image in order to play the game. Note that the FunkyFlashCart is still under development, but will soon go on sale. No longer will you be stuck playing your NES games on a crappy inaccurate emulator!
Another interesting device is actually a hardware modification for your NES called the "CopyNES". It has recently been redesigned, upgraded, and put into another round of production. Basically it is a device for ripping ROM images from carts, but it is also a ICE debugger for the NES, and it can even transfer ROM images to a RAM cart in the NES via a parallel port. The CopyNES has many other features, a favorite being the ability to play NSF files on the NES. NSF files are music ripped from NES games. Hence you can listen to your NES tunes on a real NES, as opposed to a NES emulator with poor emulation of the system's actual sound. The CopyNES is basically a circuit board that is placed between the NES's CPU and the NES's motherboard. This is how it is able to accomplish the ICE debugger features, as well as universal cart dumping, as it can force the CPU to do whatever you want. Here is the original site for the CopyNES. However, it shows an older version of the hardware. The creator announced in this thread that he will begin selling kits to mod your NES with CopyNES, and he will also provide a slightly more expensive service so that people can send their NES systems in for professional modification.
Can someone confirm or prove that this piece was by "Boston Pops - John Williams"? This seems to be another case of someone putting the wrong credits in an mp3 and shared around everywhere(i.e. most humor songs/parodies attributed to Weird Al when it wasn't him).
There is the "Orchestral Game Music Concert Live" series, and the "Game Music Concert" vol 1(WPCL-560) seems to have a track that fits this piece. Most places like this one" says that this concert was in Japan, and the Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra is credited for the performance.
I didn't like a lot of the Atari 2600 games. They let me down a lot of the time.
But I did like Atlantis and Hero. And I also remember playing quite a bit of Berzerk.
But frogger... never thought too much of it (but I did like "Frogger II: Threeedeep!" on the C64). missile command : was too easy until it got too difficult. Pac-man : didn't even like the arcade version. Didn't even like the arcade version of Ms.Pacman.
I didn't have river raid on the Atari, but I did play it on the C64. If it was as fun as that version, then OK.
I dont know about you guys, but all you need is a 1 Gb "backup / homebrew" memory card (such as Flash 2 Advance Ultra) and a Game Boy Micro and *cough* backed up copies of oh say EVERY SINGLE NINTENDO GAME EVER MADE (which you of course have, just collecting dust, right?)
o n_gba.htm and go to town on an original NES controller sized micro NES with built in color screen, auto saving and toggleable turbo buttons built in (GBA has 2 shoulder buttons, why not use them for something :))
Let me make this crystal clear:
YOU COULD PUT EVERY SINGLE NES GAME EVER MADE ON A SINGLE GBA CARTRIDGE AND PUT SAID CARTRIDGE INTO A GAMEBOY MICRO.
Reflect on this for a moment - I would assume you guys would appreciate this far more than most.
How?
Slap 128 megs of games (256 if you get the 2 Gb version - thats nearly 1,000 NES games), load up PocketNES http://www.gameboy-advance.net/emulated/nes_roms_
Of course you could also just buy (or build) an USB NES Controller and emulate them yourself (to prevent damage to the original games, i'm sure). Not as portable though, and saving and restoring the state is tougher (gotta use keys).
For extra kicks and giggles, anybody remember the old AGI Sierra games? (Think Leisure Suit Larry 1, Space Quest 1,2, Police Quest, Kings Quest Series, etc).
Some programming genius made a AGI --> GameBoy converter, called GBAGI. http://www.bripro.com/gbagi/index.php
Throw all of those on there too if you like, and even check out GREAT Fan made games that are arguably even better than the original SQ's - Space Quest 0: Replicated http://wiw.org/~jess/replicated.html and Space Quest: The Lost Chapter http://www.frostbytei.com/space/
Man these things have come a long way in just 20 years. I look forward to what the next 20 will bring - and it had better not be a Xbox 360 the size of a standard xbox controller or I am going to be PISSED.
Nintendo is not the only console out today, not even the most biggest. It's not in any way monopolistic to limit what will play on their hardware.... as opposed to not letting developers make games for others' hardware.
How many people can hear an old gametune and relive the fond memories of those days? I managed to get my cellphone working with a USB cable (take that evil moneygrubbing $2/download phone company) and regularly use old NES or SNES music as ringtones. Actually, the polyphonic ringtones on myphone do a pretty darn good job of playing those midis... so it's fun to play guess-the-game when I'm with geek friends and my phone goes off with the latest ringer.
Also, if you enjoy old game tunes, check out some of the remix sites like ocremix. They've got some decent remixes of old game tunes (as well as some not-so-decent, but not everything's a classic), as well as some newer ones.
Actually, the story is a little funnier than that. Tengen tried to reverse engineer the lockout chip, but they couldn't in time to make their deadline. So they called the USPTO and asked them to send a copy of the chip spec, claiming that they needed the information for an ongoing legal case. The Patent Office gladly passed over the specs, and Tengen started making copies. By the time Nintendo had sued the pants off Tengen, they'd figured out how to disable the lockout by sending a small power surge to knockout the chip inside the system.
Another funny story from the NES era is the tale of Wisdom Tree Games, the derivative company created by Color Dreams to sell unauthorized NES cartridges out in the open without fear of retribution from Nintendo. How? The company and the games were biblically themed, and the carts were sold in Christian bookstores. Nintendo didn't dare sue a company making bible games, for fear of massive PR backlash. So Wisdom Tree thrived in its technically-illegal niche. In fact, it's still around today and still printing carts for the gameboy color.
The 10NES chip certainly made for some interesting stories.
A strain of paranoid prevention can be worse than the disease, whate'er the intention.
I think Super Mario Bros was the first entertaining video game. I was totally hooked on video games before it, but when I found it in the arcade at Hills Department Store, I was floored by how fun it was.
God spoke to me.
Well...at least for the first few years.....
:_(
It wasn't 'cool' to be a gamer. I got all sorts of flack and harrassment from other kids for being a 'Nintendo kid'.
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
Yesterday i realized it was 20 years, so i went out and bought the game boy advanced versions of Zelda I and Zelda II, and have been playing them in celebration.
:(]
To one of my best friends, happy birthday NES, my best friend through elementary school [and junior high... high school... college..
visitor from www.slashdot.jp
"When the NES launched, America hated videogames" - wtf is this?
... the Amiga and Atari ST were released in the same year as the SNES.. these machines sold more games than SNES.. and many more classics were dervied from them.. The silly one eyed Nintendo fanboy thing is so typically ignorant.. and there were many more great machines around too at the same time..
1982? Remember anything that happened that year? try...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C64
So please explain.. how in hell did Nintendo some how be come a gaming saviour? what a complete load of utter crap. There were many thousands of fantastic games on _non_ Nintendo platforms that made the whole industry what it was.. Nintendo (like always) came in quite late in the picture and decided to reap some money from the games market..
On top of that the Atari 2600.. is waaaaaay earlier than the SNES.. by almost 10 YEARS!!! Wtf are you lot on... ffs.. use some wiki.. for crying out loud.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_2600
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST
Its hilarious that people even put the SNES up as some amazing fore runner to the gaming industry, thats just a complete fabrication.. Nintendo were scammers.. and still are.. ppl typically blinded by bs marketing..
The NES was a console? I thought it was an emulator for really old games.
If someone in Fort Wayne can put his [beverage] down long enough to play a video game, he can visit www.lik-sang.com to buy it there.
How many other adults in my home town who are interested in handheld gaming know 1. that www.lik-sang.com exists and 2. how to shop online? (I say "adults" partly because too many parents are afraid of buying a child's Christmas present online.) And what professional-quality native games will attract people to the GP2X platform, especially given that it's expected to cost significantly more than a Nintendo DS? And if there aren't a lot of other GP2X owners, how will I be able to find partners for 2-player gaming?
Maybe it is time to move out of your parents' house.
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
I mean, I understand it was a HORRIBLE game. I mean BAD. Yes, I understand. But for me no Atari 2600 game caused as much torment as Pac-Man. E.T. was a new game, apparently inspired by a bad case of food poisoning. Pac-Man was based on one of the greatest video games ever, and they RUINED it. Bastardized beyond almost all recognition actually. So why all the hate for E.T. when Pac-Man failed on such a grander scale?
I'm a twenty-something, and I have a Space Invaders jacket that I wear pretty much every day. It is the first game that I remember playing. I haven't played a version of it in many years, but it still brings back good memories
"Something's wrong with you...and I hope we never do meet again." - Deftones When Girls Telephone Boys
Originally, Nintendo was also going to market a disk drive (which was available for the Fanicom in Japan) so that people could use it as a home PC. As it turned out, the market accepted the Nintendo well enough that they eventually ditched the whole "home computer" idea.
Are you sure it didn't have to do with the fact that the Famicom disk drive was a piece of garbage which had the MTBF of a mid-80s Amtrak train stocked with a supply of bongs and grass?
I had it and it blew chunks. The Dirty Pair game I had on it worked maybe a small percentage of the time. Disk access was where it failed every time though.
What monumentally sucked about the NES versus Famicom was Gradius II never went to the NES but Gradius III did. I had to buy an imported Famicom to play Gradius II, one of my finest game playing moments. Gradius rocked.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Oops, my bad. Gradius III went to the SNES. Sorry. (insert rolling eyes emoticon here)
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Even DURING the rise of the NES everyone I knew that had already got themselves C64s or another 8 bit home computer was happy with that system for gaming, and was therefore not interested in getting a NES too.
The C64 for example had some fine arcade style games, that were more than enough for an arcade fix when you didnt have enough money for a day at the arcades.
A carpenter, eh? I always thought he was a plumber with the pipes and all. And wasn't it his first game? Close enough I guess.
Princess Peach/Toadstool/whatever is a kind and just ruler. Had you read the propoganda - er - manual, you would know that Bowser was an evil tyrant sorcerer with a dark lizard army who wrested power away from the benevolent royal family by turning her loyal retainers into bricks and question-mark blocks, and corrupting some into those really easy goombas.
Also, my friend told me that when you beat level 99 on Duck Hunt, it showed a credits screen with you eating a duck dinner.
I still haven't forgiven him.
You've done what? 1 serious day of work on this so far?
Monday: 1up 3 pg article on the history of the NES (where you devote more time the Wizard and SMB movie than you do the licensing battles)
Tuesday: You have EGM regurgitate the same article and reverse/reword the portions about the movies and licensing)
Wednesday: READERS pick their fav games.
You guys bustin' some balls over there for content aren't you?
I would have preferred some interviews with the people that got the NES over here. Or maybe about the '86 shortages. Or the fact that ROB was a throwaway add on that's been martyr'd as THE lamest pack in for a console. Or all the little commonplace things we take for granted now or were established back when Nintendo was king?
A. The Konami Code
B. SMB3/Zelda2 shortages due to "chip manufacturing delays"
C. Nintendo's stance on blood/violence in games
D. NES Advantage/Multitap/Max/Zapper
E. THE GODDAMN SNICKERING DOG FROM DUCK HUNT!
F. New genres Nintendo created out of their system.
G. Anything you didn't cover in the Famicom article from 2 years ago that was more about the NES's popularity here than the actual Famicom itself in Japan
Lemme know if you want writeups on any of these, because it'll be far more entertaining than reading a passage reminiscing about the kid from the Wizard and his obsession his "Power Glove" That thing gets whipped out more than goatse.cx references.
I find it interesting that, to get their system onto shelves, Nintendo promoted the NES as an Entertainment System, rather than a video game system.
Now, Microsoft and Sony are trying to push their next game systems as "Entertainment" (Media) systems, and Nintendo has been on the "we are a pure video game company" horse for a while now.
If the Revolution sells, then I think we'll see Microsoft and Sony follow the lead horse again and focus on being "enhanced gaming machines".
Tecmo Super Bowl
Blades of Steel
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I remember playing Super Mario at Walmart when it first came out. Cool.
-l
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Grandparent poster was clearly a woman. Sexual anonymity failed when she confessed that she attempted to shoot the dog. Dog is Man's best friend.
"In 1984-5, if you liked video games, you owned a Commodore 64."
And thank god for that. I was a HUGE Atari fan and played that console like crazy. My family also has a monstrous, green screen, 32K, tape driven Commodore PET. We used to play the occasional game of horse racing on it when we could be patient enough for the tape to load, but the Atari was the cornerstone of gaming in our house. Then the market died. All most overnight Atari became a bad word on playgrounds everywhere. Admitting you played video games could be dangerous in certain circumstances.
Enter the Commodore 64. Enter the world of much more in depth gaming. Ultima, Zork, Seven Cities of Gold, MULE etc.
And while becoming obsessed with these great games, I also discovered programming and how much fun computers could be when you weren't playing games on them.
If it wasn't for the video game crash, who knows? I might not have a job in the IT profession. I just might have ended up one of those console junkies and never learned the joys of Civilization (1, 2, 3 and shortly 4).
Sometimes my arms bend back.
It crashed more of less because of the thinking that personal computers could do the same and more than consoles. This is why they attempted to make some of their consoles closer to pcs with accesories.
Atari 2600 kept surviving because it was very cheap, as opposed to both other consoles and catridges. I remember the colecovision was very pricey with all its fancy controllers the games that required them (wheel for turbo, trackball for centipede, etc).
IMO the biggest lost for the american video console market was that of the intellivision. Often overlooked, it had real technical merit and its titles were very good. It was a 16bit console made in 78, with a succesor using the 68000 cpu planned by the time of the crash. You could feel the difference if you played games like autoracing and motocross, on par only with games released much later for the 65c02 based nintendo. All in a 500Khz cpu... They even ventured with sound speech and keyboard modules.
Check those "Imagic" games, ported for all the consoles of the time, and see the diffence on each console. Atlantis would be a good example... How about CRPGs? Treasure of Tarmin, pretty much like would be later Eye of the Beholder style.
Graphics and sounds were limited, but then imagination could take over. That was the first game i ever spent the whole night playing nonstop until morning.
And what i miss most was the controlers, in particular the 16 direction disc. Back in the day, most people used to the atari "joystick", hated them, But i loved them. Much later the nintendo console used the infamous 4 direction cross shaped controler, not too different in concept, and much more annoying to the touch.
So if Mattel Electronics had survived the crash, and the 68000 based Intellevision III could have been released, maybe things would have looked a bit diferent today. Remember: Japan didn't exported RPG games to america at first because they thought the americans were "too dumb" for them. Check Dragonquest and Final Fantasy history.
Maybe they were right in some way...
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
Oh, please! Who hasn't tried to shoot the dog at least once?
Ah yes, Anticompetitive-practices R Us.
Why yes, I did own a Sega Master System. Why do you ask?
I didn't upset anyone. Well maybe the nanny but that's a long story. Pssh.
I loved Atlantis. I also had another Imagic title, Demon Attack. I played both of these recently on an emulator. They're still damned hard.
http://www.atariage.com/software_page.html?Softwar eLabelID=542
Felt like cartoons brought to life? Are you nuts? Mario didn't have a soul back then, he was just some mutant character produced by the twisted minds of the Japanese. And frankly, the stories behind the games were pretty inscrutable and always felt tacked on after-the-fact.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Ah...this brings back sweet memories of the good old days. When Dragon Ball was my favourite game!
Nerd-rap Entertainment System, The Album.
http://www.ytcracker.com/nes/
Please press start on controller 2.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Don't give too much head -- we're only doing it just for mother. (gouges-out eyes)
Hey buddy.
A woman is someone that is bearing a child in the womb. It is clearly written that man is either male or female. Someone can only be woman for the time devoted for the gestation of the embryo. What are you tryin' to say? Wanna fight about it? OK. Here's the deal; we walk away from this subject quietly, with both hands on our own self-same joysticks and in complete anonymity...not to be construed as walking away with your hands on mine and mine hands on yours: just go, man, just go.
Greetings!
I agree with your post, until you speak of Wind Tree Games. Their software is somewhat as entertaining as a lame lamb, yet it has purpose. I've known missionaries in China that are thrown in prison and tortured for owning, carrying, or sharing any matter of the Bible. The same has been done in Israel, as the United Nations created the State of Israel and it does not allow Christian missionaries to bring the Bible and preach the gospels. Thus, in such a way as to minimize a seizure derived of hatred, it is a blessing to bring the Bible encoded onto a GameBoy cartridge. At best, despite the Wind Tree Games software being somewhat of certain entertainment value, it is an option for those of us that are on that Front that no NEWS CORPORATION dare exhibit. This all to say; love is the law; thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet...
(because everyone should know China and Israel hate the gospels, while Jesus Christ is acknowledged and respected in the Arab countries (that BUSH administraitors are trying to steal from).)
Related URL: KJV AV 1611 Holy Bible on a GameBoy cartridge
without prejudice
No way everyone I know got stuck on that stupid underwater bomb map. What a shitty stage too, who wants to randomly swim to defuse invisible bombs.
This is not Korea? OK!
Everyone tries to shoot the dog. Usually while he has his tongue pointed at you.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
All these top ten lists and the Goonies isn't on any of them wtf that was the best of all nes games.
Giana Sisters was "one of the most popular games for the Amiga"? As a big-time Amiga fan back iu the day, I've gotta call bullshit on that. The only reason anyone knows what it is at all is that it was a bit controversial - since it WAS a SMB rip-off.
Even years later in college, that game was awesome. Madden was just getting good, of course, but (Super?) Tecmo Bowl was all about Cunningham, Bo and Riggins. Loved that game.
I have both Earthworld and Fireworld (not Waterworld, unfortunately). I think I still have the comic for Fireworld, as well.
The gameplay of both was full of minigames. You pressed the button in a room, and you went to the minigame. After solving the game, you got to go to the room which contained items (sometimes nothing). The puzzle was that you had to leave certain items in certain rooms, and some of the minigames required specific items. Or certain items would help you immensely.
The puzzles don't make much sense, because they were deeply tied into the comic that came with the game. If you did something right, the screen would flash and some numbers would appear. They hinted to page numbers and comic panels that indicated what you needed to do. The end game involved solving these 'riddles' to find the secret object.
As a side note, the games were actually part of a contest. The riddles in the comic hinted at a bigger puzzle. You needed to send in the answer to enter the contest. The entrants were to play through a modified version of each game, with the winner obtaining the object based on that game. We're also talking major pieces of art, worth tens of thousands. You should read up on the contests; they didn't complete them, not even releasing/creating Airworld to have that contest. A shame, really. Makes me miss the good old days of gaming.
Whoever made that top 15 list were sad, lonely losers. The only games on that list with decent mulitplayer were Contra, Mario 3, and River City Ransom - and I couldn't find any mention of it anyways.
And Duck Hunt was vastly inferior to Hogan's Alley anyways.
The games that we played the hell out of? Rock'n'ball, Base Wars, Super Dodge Ball, River City, Contra, Archon, etc.
Single player is masturbation.
### Giana Sisters was "one of the most popular games for the Amiga"?
Well, it probally was more popular on the C64 then on the Amiga, but it was quite popular back then. Might not have sold a lot due to being removed from the shelfs, but it was copied a heck of a lot and I wouldn't be suprised if most people have it in their personal top-ten list of C64 games.
A big part of the reason had nothing to do with Nintendo, other than them being "too stupid to accept that nobody wanted video games any more". I mean, look at what they had... it had a 6502, which had already been used for years, and it had a video chip that wasn't much more capable what what the Colecovision had, except that it had support for smooth scrolling, and it also (this was actually quite an innovation) brought the video chip bus out to the cartridge port.
What changed between 1984 and 1988 was Moore's Law. Large ROM chips became cheap. Back in '84, even 32K of ROM was a big manufacturing cost. If you don't have much storage space, you re-use it all you can. By 1988, 128K was no problem at all. I mean, look at Pokemon. It's running on a Z-80 type chip that was only better than a TRS-80 in two ways: 1) it was portable, and 2) one megabyte of bank-switched ROM was relatively cheap by then. The NES/GB/CGB was classic-era hardware with modern gameplay.
If "the crash" hadn't happened, you might have seen the Atari 7800 library morph from classic games to the NES/C64-era games. The later games for the system show every sign that this would have happened.
And this old classic gamer these days is playing a lot of Katamari Damacy. It's the other way around, the feel of classic gameplay (even if there is a time limit), but using modern 3-D graphics.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Found an MP3 of that track on the first "Game Music Concert" soundtrack, and the SMB one is the exact SAME ONE!
So that confirms my theory that it isn't by "Boston Pops - John Williams", this is yet another case of MP3s files being wrongly tagged and spread around.
I bought the TMNT arcade game when I ws like in 4th grade or something. I remember the game having top notch graphics for its time, above the rest of the NES pack. The conversion from the arcade was more than anyone could ask for given the NES's computing power.