(1) Fri Jul 17 2009 23:17 Nostlagiaudit, Part II:
Previously on Nostalgiaudit, I explained
how I got hooked on electronic simulations of impossible scenarios,
and how I was eventually given specialized hardware to feed that
addiction. This time around, I take a look at the aftermath, and then
give a detailed analysis of the years I lost to the NES.
Update: I've removed one of the stories about how I was a jerk when I was a kid, by way of apology to the person affected.
Later arcades
A corner store near the middle school had Smash TV. CJ and Ivan and
I would stop occasionally and admire its hamhanded satire of
consumerism. I never had the money to play it.
Throughout junior high one or another of my classes would take trips
to a bowling alley in Bakersfield. Two trips a year, maybe. Instead of
bowling I spent most of my time hanging out alone in the small arcade,
playing Arkanoid and Ms. Pac-Man. Well, I probably didn't spend that
much time in the arcade because that would have required more money
than a couple dollars, but I remember the arcade better than the
bowling.
I remember watching CJ and Ivan play the four-player Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles arcade brawler at a laundromat in Bakersfield, while
we waited for CJ's mom to pick something up. Arvin was not so small
that you had to drive twenty miles to get groceries, but you did
have to drive twenty miles to get something dry cleaned. I didn't
join in because I didn't like that kind of game.
End of the NES
Early in 1991--probably in April or May, maybe in June when school
let out--I suddenly stopped playing my NES. Of the NES games released
in 1991, I've played only three. I admired the Super NES during my
Target visits, but I never wanted one or asked for one. Same with the
Game Boy.
My last issue of Nintendo Power was probably the August 1991 issue,
which makes sense if I had two one-year subscriptions. The March issue
was the last to feature any games I've played. I read Nintendo Power
on its own without asking for or renting any of the games, and then I
let my subscription lapse.
I don't know why this happened. In an earlier draft I suggested my
father's death might have been the trigger, but I got the dates
mixed up--my father died in 1992. Maybe it was puberty, or maybe I
was just bored with NES-style games. Cartridges weren't getting any
cheaper, and by 1991 I had competition for my pocket money: the
Prodigy dial-up service and an endless series of $20 AD&D rulebooks.
I'd still been buying PC games at retail. I remember playing Rampage a
lot, and Marble Madness. They weren't as good as the corresponding NES
games, but they were much cheaper.
I'd also been buying disks of shareware games from various places: a
factory outlet store in Barstow, the Association of Shareware
Professionals catalog, etc. Most of the games were crap, but I made
three lucky discoveries. In 1990 I bought a disk of the Adventure Game
Toolkit, and a disk that included an early version of Hack. In 1992 in
Barstow I bought a disk with ZZT on it.
(I loved the idea of the ASP so much that in 1990 I wrote fifteen
terrible GW-BASIC games and other programs, each ending with a nagging
shareware registration message, and sent a disk off to the ASP so
they'd distribute it and I could rake in the dough. I got a letter
that said they'd given my program to someone to review, and then I got
another letter politely declining my contribution to the shareware
world. Among the reasons given: the fact that my disk contained the
Microsoft-copyrighted GWBASIC.EXE, and most painful of all, "Programs
appear to have no defining purpose." Thankfully, my GW-BASIC programs
have by now ascended to software heaven and cannot be found on the
material plane.)
In late 1992 I learned about BBSes. Within a month I was neglecting
the Prodigy boards in favor of local BBSes. By the beginning of 1993 I
was planning my own BBS. I launched it in 1993
and directed my game-collecting expertise towards stocking it with
shareware. After this I bought some of SSI's AD&D games, a collection
of Infocom games, and I registered some shareware games, but not until
2007 would I again buy video games on a regular basis.
I don't know what happened to my NES or the cartridges. I'm pretty
sure they were still in the house somewhere when I left for college,
but a couple years into college when I wanted them back they were
gone, and my mother vague about what had happened to them. Hopefully
everything was given to some younger kid who put it to good use. It's
also possible I just took the NES apart--in high school I often took
things apart to see what was inside, often destroying things I would
have valued later.
From my mother's perspective, the NES and video games in
general were something I'd grown out of. I'd lost interest only a year
and a half after getting my own NES. My sister's obsession with The
Nutcracker lasted about that long. And that's not a bad point of
view. I was still interested in computer games, but my interest in
specialized gaming computers wouldn't resurface until the
Wii was released, fifteen years later.
After high school
I briefly rediscovered console games in college, in the form of
emulated NES and SNES games, but I was busy with other
entertainments--writing music, learning about Unix, and
exploring the Internet. One of my freshman year roommates had an N64,
and I played Bomberman with the guys a couple times, but I hardly ever
played games, and when I did they were PC games like Nethack or
Command and Conquer.
My sophomore year of college, my friend Andy Schile gave me an Atari
2600 and a bunch of games. I thought this was a cool gift, I played
the games for a few days, and then I disconnected the 2600 and put it
in storage at my mother's house. In 2005 I found it again and passed
it on to another friend, Adam Kaplan.
Here's one theory about why I lost interest. After graduating from
high school I went on a vacation to Washington D.C. and stayed with my
uncle. My cousins also had an N64 and I played some Super Mario 64 and
even a bit of Ocarina of Time, but it didn't stick with me. Why?
Because these games had a first-person perspective, and I couldn't
handle that. I grew up with two-dimensional side- or top-view games
and I just wasn't dextrous enough to maneuver in 3D. As a PC gamer I
was terrible at Wolfenstein and Doom, even though they didn't really
require moving in three dimensions, just mastering a first-person
perspective. In the 90s more and more games went to first-person, and
I reacted by just not playing the games.
NES cartridge audit
This list was the original point of this essay: an attempt to classify
my scattered memories of specific games. The essay part came out of my
growing realization that there were a whole lot of auxillary memories
and non-NES experiences that needed to be put into place.
I realized something while compiling this list: when I was a kid, I
almost never had a bad experience playing an NES game. I played games
now considered among the system's worst (Deadly Towers, Super
Pitfall), games that today are fuel for snarky entertainment, but I
generally had a good time playing them. I didn't know enough to hold
the assumption, prevalent today, that a game should be beatable by a
skilled player and that games existed to be beaten. I thought a game
was a simulated world for playing in. When a game started to frustrate
me, I just turned it off and played something else. My only bad
experiences came from wasting a rental on a terrible game.
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of the Lance:
Rented once. One of the few carts that did give me a bad
experience. I felt ripped off and gave up within ten minutes. May have
been the last NES cartridge I ever rented, or even played. In fact
maybe I stopped playing console games for fifteen years because this
game was so bad. It was so bad that Nintendo Power gave its play
controls a 1.9 out of 5--the worst score I ever saw in that
chronically if-you-can't-say-anything-nice rag.
- Adventure Island:
Played once in unknown circumstances.
- Adventures of Lolo:
I owned this. I remember being stuck for a long time on a puzzle near
the end, and eventually skipping it by figuring out the pattern behind
the password system.
- Adventures of Lolo II:
Possibly rented once.
- Baby Boomer:
Rented once. I was intrigued by the nonstandard cartridge. This game
is not good, especially since the NES light gun is so terrible, but I
can't help feeling there's a good game inside of it trying to get out.
- Back to the Future Part II & III:
Rented twice. Also not a good game, but I was intrigued by the huge
variety of weird mini-games, and wanted to see them all. (I didn't
come close.) I hadn't seen the movies, so the lack of fidelity didn't
bother me.
- Balloon Fight:
Rented once. Fun.
- Baseball Simulator 1.000:
Rented three times. I loved this insane baseball-with-superpowers
game.
- Battletoads:
Probably played with a friend at one point, but I'm not sure. If so,
the friend is likely to be CJ.
- Bionic Commando:
I could tell this game was good, despite the paucity of Nintendo Power
coverage, but I don't think I played it until college. Maybe I played
it *once*. It was quite difficult to find.
- Blaster Master: Sammy had this and was pretty good at it. I
loved the shape and shade of the power-up items--like grey M&Ms--and
the fact that you could leave your vehicle and move around on your
own.
- A Boy And His Blob:
Rented twice. Great idea but frustrating. I've mentioned this game in
NYCB a couple times before.
- Bubble Bobble:
Rented once. Fun.
- Burgertime:
Rented once. Okay, but not gonna occupy more than an hour or two of
the weekend. I probably rented it because it was an arcade port.
- Castlevania:
Played at Sammy's house. I don't think he owned it.
- Castlevania II: Simon's Quest:
Sammy did own this one and we spent many hours on it. He spent more
time on it than I did, obviously, so I got kind of a set of snapshots
into the progression of his game without really understanding how the
parts fit together with the mansions and such.
- Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse:
Rented at least twice. Very fun.
- Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers:
I don't know how it happened, but I owned this. I think someone else
got bored with it and gave it to me. An easy game but very fun.
- City Connection:
Owned by Sammy. A common choice when we wanted something quick. Not
terribly well regarded now, but we had a lot of fun with it.
- Cobra Triangle:
Pretty sure I rented it once.
- Commando:
Probably owned by Sammy since I played it multiple times at his
house. Not too fun in 1989.
- Contra:
Awesome. Owned by Sammy, a very common choice. We beat the game
multiple times thanks to the Konami code.
- Crystalis:
I owned this. I believe it was a Christmas present. Very fun. I came
fairly close to beating it before losing interest in the NES.
- Deadly Towers:
I believe Sammy owned this briefly. Not very good, though we didn't
hate it as much as people hate it today.
- Deja Vu:
Rented multiple times, including with CJ. I think I also completed it.
- Donkey Kong Jr.:
A one-time rental to satisfy my still-fresh fantasies of being able to
play this game, having seen it in an arcade a few years earlier. I
loved this game's colorful fruit.
- Double Dragon:
Sammy owned this. We played it occasionally but I didn't like it that
much (I still don't care for this kind of game). I don't know how
Sammy felt about it; maybe he played it more with others. Now
considered a classic.
- Double Dribble:
I think Sammy owned this in phase one, when his NES was upstairs--I
vividly remember the speech sample. Not played much.
- Dr. Mario:
Rented twice. Lots of fun, and I think even my mother played it, but
that might just be a stereotype about peoples' mothers playing
Dr. Mario.
- Dragon Warrior:
Acquired via the Nintendo Power pack-in. I played this for hours and
hours, grinding and grinding, getting up at 4AM Saturday morning to
kill some GOLDMEN, but never quite beat it.
- DuckTales:
Rented or borrowed at least once. Like Chip 'n' Dale, not that
difficult, but amazingly fun.
- Elevator Action:
A one-time rental. Still pretty fun. One of the few arcade ports that didn't leave me feeling slightly ripped off.
- Excitebike:
Played at CJ's house. I think he owned it but we may have been
renting. Not a very common choice due to the primitive
graphics. Creating an insane course was fun though.
- Faxanadu:
I owned this and it was definitely a Christmas present: I remember
Santa/my uncle slapping into my hands and saying "Faxanadu!" in a
goofy gee-these-kids-today voice. Pretty fun game, but I never got
past the second boss.
- Final Fantasy:
I owned it. Completed after much grinding and careful attention to the
Nintendo Power strategy guide.
- Gauntlet:
Multiple rental; also played it briefly at an unknown family friend's
house in Bakersfield (the Neumeisters?). I loved this game in the
arcade and on the NES. Recently I bought the GBA version and had a
pretty lousy time. First, the GBA port isn't that great, but the main
problem is once you have unlimited time to devote to Gauntlet with no
money constraints, it becomes a dull grind. You know what Gauntlet
needs? Grenades. Think about it.
- Gauntlet II:
I'm pretty sure I rented this once.
- Ghostbusters:
Sammy owned it. We'd play it once in a while until we got bored. Never
made it to the infamous stairway scene. Another game that's hated
today but that we liked to use to kill some time.
- The Goonies II:
Hell yeah. Sammy owned it and we played it a lot. He eventually beat
it with me watching. I really wanted to own this game, but never
did--if anyone was willing to buy me a game I'd always have preferred
one I hadn't played before.
- Gremlins 2: The New Batch:
Saw this being played at someone's house, never played it myself.
- Gyromite:
Played a couple times right after Sammy got his NES (he got the one
that came bundled with the R.O.B. robot and Gyromite) I always liked
this game's funky music, but Sammy abandoned it quickly, and for good
reason.
- Gyruss:
A probable one-time rental because of Bear Mountain Pizza's Gyruss
arcade cabinet.
- Ice Climber:
Played once under unknown circumstances; probably briefly owned by
Sammy in phase one of his NES ownership. Of all NES titles, Ice Climber
probably has the widest nostalgia gap between how much I like
thinking about the game and how fun it is to play.
- Ikari Warriors:
Owned by Sammy and a pretty frequent pick. We made liberal use of the
continue code and had a good time with it. Now I know that the
controls on the NES version were not nearly as good as the arcade
controls, but it didn't matter then.
- Ikari Warriors II: Victory Road:
Same story as the original Ikari Warriors.
- Kabuki Quantum Fighter:
I never played this game, but it was covered in one of the last issues
of Nintendo Power I received, and I liked the word "Kabuki" so much I
named my guinea pig Kabuki. It's a great guinea pig name because when
a guinea pig is happy it makes a sound like "buki buki buki".
- The Karate Kid:
Played briefly at someone else's house in Arvin. Pretty bad.
- Karnov:
Sammy owned it. Played somewhat often, and fun, but very frustrating.
- Kid Icarus:
Multiple rental in collaboration with CJ and Ivan. We
eventually beat it. Still fun today.
- Kung Fu:
Played at least once at Sammy's house, the day I got my first cavity filled.
- Legacy of the Wizard:
Multiple rental. I liked exploring but never got anywhere in this game.
- The Legend of Zelda:
Sammy owned this, and it was the second NES game I ever saw. (See
above) I think Sammy beat the first quest, but not in my presence, and
we kept playing it afterwards, going through both quests. I don't
think I ever played this game on my own NES. I have since beaten both
quests.
- Life Force:
Multiple rental. I beat this game thanks to the Konami Code.
- Little Nemo: The Dream Master:
Rented at least once. Pretty decent.
- Magmax:
Rented once. Obscure, but not bad. Remembered all of a sudden while
watching Chrontendo, when I also noted the stylistic resemblances to
Seicross (see below).
- Maniac Mansion:
The mother of all multiple rentals. Rented twice on my own and then at
least twice more with CJ (but not Ivan?). Our goal was first to beat it, then to
get all the endings. Really fun.
- Mario Bros.:
Possibly a one-time rental.
- Mega Man:
Played once at Sammy's house, but it must have been a rental because
he didn't have it long-term. I loved this game and it was a big part
of my desire for...
- Mega Man 2:
I think this was the first NES cart I owned besides the SMB
pack-in. Perhaps the consumate NES game, and the second one (after
SMB) that I beat on my own. Somewhere I have a picture of me next to
the TV, which is showing the final line of the credits. Excellent all
around.
- Mega Man 3:
Owned it, probably a birthday present. I don't think I got all the way
through this before losing interest in the NES.
- Metal Gear:
Sammy owned it, and we played it often. Another one of the games where
I don't have a good picture of how it fits together because I only
played bits of it.
- Metroid:
Kind of the same story as Metal Gear, Goonies II, Zelda, etc. Sammy
owned it and I played it, but I only played parts. I have played it
all the way through since then.
- Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!:
I believe I played this once at the house of someone who lived in the same apartment complex as CJ.
- Miracle Piano:
Played once at a relative's house in northern California. Not too fun
since I had to take piano lessons already and hated it.
- Monster Party:
CJ owned this game and I borrowed it from him more than once. I loved
the weirdness but I never got very far.
- North and South:
Multiple rental, both alone and with CJ. Lots of fun in two-player
mode with its combination of strategy and action. My cavalry was
deadly.
- Pinball:
Played once at Sammy's house.
- Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom:
Rented once with CJ, and then again by myself because CJ got bored
with it and I wanted to make more progress. In retrospect, not that
good.
- Pro Wrestling:
A title owned early on by Sammy but not kept for long. I still
remember the Creature from the Black Lagoon wrestler chewing on
peoples' faces. Pretty violent for a Nintendo-published game!
- RBI Baseball:
Played at least once at a mysterious house in Bakersfield, possibly
the house where my Cub Scout meetings were held.
- R.C. Pro-Am:
Owned by Sammy. One of our favorites, right up there with Contra. He
was much better at this game than I was, but I'm not bad now.
- Ring King:
Played once under unknown circumstances.
- Rush'n Attack:
Possibly owned by Sammy; rarely played, if so.
- Section Z:
Multiple rental. An overlooked gem, IMO.
- Seicross:
Rented twice. I had a lot of fun with this obscure racing game, though
I don't think I made it past the second level.
- Sesame Street: A-B-C/1-2-3:
Played briefly at the house of my cousins Kyle and Eric. They were
only allowed to have educational NES games, which meant not many NES
games at all. Really abysmal.
- Shadowgate:
Multiple rental with CJ and then owned. Lots of fun. CJ used to make
fun of me by saying "Behemoth", the name of the last enemy in the
game. He said it "BeHEmoth", as though he were coughing something
up. I never knew why this constituted making fun of me.
- The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants:
Played at least once, at unknown cousins' house. The first level is
very inventive, and the second level is terrible and you die. I had a
lot of fun at unknown cousins' house messing with this game by putting
random codes into the Game Genie.
- Sky Kid:
Played one morning at the house of my friend Raymond Parker, who at
the time was a tournament-level golfer and who now seems to be a
realtor in Bakersfield. I'm sure I played other games at his house,
but this was the only one I hadn't played before. Pretty fun.
- Solomon's Key:
Rented once. Didn't like it.
- Super Pitfall:
Acquired in some non-monetary transaction. This game is hated today,
and rightfully so, but I never had a bad time with it. I'd fire it up,
spend a couple games exploring the caverns, and turn it off when I got
frustrated. I never tried to beat it the way I tried to beat Mega Man
2. So I end up with nothing but fond memories of it.
- Spy Hunter:
Rented at least once. Fun in the arcade but not as a rental.
- Spy vs. Spy:
Sammy owned it, and it's a really great concept for a game, but we didn't play it often because it's really poorly designed. You never get to execute any of the cool booby-trap moves.
- Sqoon:
It's barely possible that I played this game at Raymond Parker's house
as well. It's more likely that it just kind of looks like Sky Kid.
- Startropics:
Multiple rental. I believe I was stymied by the radio frequency trick,
and then rented it again once the secret was published in Nintendo
Power. (Or am I making that second rental up?)
- Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt:
Pack-in with my NES. Duck Hunt I only played occasionally. SMB was the
very first NES game I played. Played at that Circuit City, then at
Sammy's house, then at my house once I got an NES, and also memorably
at Raymond Parker's house (on a different occasion than the Sky Kid
occasion), where we left the game paused for hours on world 3 because
Raymond's mom wanted to watch a golf tournament. I did beat the game
on my own, and it was possibly the first game I ever beat.
- Super Mario Bros. 2:
This game was extremely difficult to get, even by the time I had an
NES which was months after its official release, but I managed to
borrow it from an unknown friend who had himself borrowed it from
someone I didn't know and who didn't know me, My friend lent me the game
without telling the original lender. Intrigue! I kept the game for, I
believe, a week, and came fairly close to beating it. I also played it
briefly at my piano teacher's house. I've beaten it since then.
- Super Mario Bros. 3:
I played this briefly (it was world 1-4) at the house of one of my
mother's friends. Yes, it was awesome. I remember the excitement at
school around the game's release in 1990. I believe I borrowed this on
a long-term basis, because I played it a lot more than if I'd rented
it, but I don't think I owned it. I never quite beat it (though I have
since then), but I did get to the final world.
- Tecmo Bowl:
CJ owned this game and we played it occasionally, but I never liked
it, or sports games in general.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
I was never into the Turtles either but I did play this; I'm pretty
sure CJ owned it. We died in the electric seaweed, just like everyone
else.
- Tetris:
Played the Tengen version at the house of Brian Overturf, perhaps best
known as the composer of the epic song "Leonard Shot Everyone Down". I never needed this for
the NES because I had a pirated version on the PC. Because I got all
my gaming news from Nintendo Power, I didn't learn until later what
was up with the multiple Tetris carts and why Tengen's carts were
shaped differently from the licensed Nintendo carts.
- Top Gun:
Sammy owned this game. We played it for a while and then he got rid of
it or abandoned it cause it's so damn hard.
- Town & Country Surf Designs:
Sammy owned this game and we played it occasionally, never making any
progress. T&C Surf Designs is one of those late-80s things for which
people not in my age cohort will just have to take my word. It was
huge.
- Ultima: Exodus:
I owned it. Very frustrating. I just wanted to explore the
overworld. I hated the first-person dungeons and the endless
fights. My favorite thing was to steal a ship and take it to
Ambrosia. My second favorite thing was character creation.
- Ultima II: Quest of the Avatar:
I owned it, under shameful circumstances. In seventh grade I swapped
one of my games (Chip 'N' Dale?) for this with a classmate named Bill
Lloyd. (I can't find Bill online, but it's vaguely possible this is him.) Bill made it
totally clear that it was a temporary swap and that the game I was
lending him was greatly inferior to Ultima II. Then Bill's family
moved away, and I never saw him again, so I kept the game. In theory
this could have been an honest mistake, but I'm almost certain I took
some positive action to avoid Bill until he moved away. I still feel
bad about it. And how fitting that I should act unethically to get a
copy of this game about ethics. On the odd chance that Bill reads
this, I'm happy to buy him a replacement cartridge and an NES to play
it on. Or he can just download the ROM and play it on an emulator like
everyone else. (If you're not sure that you're the Bill Lloyd I'm talking
about, you also lent me your Xanth novels, which I did return.)
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit?:
Rented twice. Unlike the AVGN, I liked driving around in this
game. It was my favorite part of the whole thing.
- Willow:
I think I saw this game being played once, but never played it
myself. It looks decent; I guess I could give it a try.
- Wrestlemania:
I played this game very very briefly at the home of the Rasmussens, a
family we knew from church who also lived in the middle of nowhere,
but in a different part of nowhere from us. It's probably not very good.
- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link:
Pretty sure I never owned this one. I did play it at home for a long
time but I think I'd borrowed it. I never quite beat it, but I liked
it a lot and I think its current bad reputation is largely unearned.
Games I owned
By and large these are the games that I had to own, because they were
too complicated to rent and my friends didn't want to play them. You
can build up a pretty good idea of the kind of kid I was from this
list. For instance, I'm a science fiction guy now, but back then I
really loved high fantasy.
- Adventures of Lolo
- Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers
- Crystalis
- Dragon Warrior
- Faxanadu
- Final Fantasy
- Mega Man 2
- Mega Man 3
- Shadowgate
- Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt
- Super Pitfall
- Ultima: Exodus
- Ultima II: Quest of the Avatar
- Comments:
There's a lot to comment on in this write-up. I'll just say I owned Balloon Fight and until now I never knew of anyone else who ever played it (it was great, and even has a 'quest' mode), and character creation was probably the best part of Ultima on NES. That game was *crazy* hard.