Nintendo NES

What is it about old video games that makes them fun to play?… Nintendo (I am talking about original NES), made god knows how long ago (released in 1983), has been the way that I have been passing some of my free time lately. The graphics are bad, the game play limited to essentially two dimensions (up and down; left and right movement) and essentially linear (or no) plot lines. But this system has two things going for it.

First the games are classic, mostly cause its hard to remember everything about games made 15 years ago, but they are still ingrained in my memory. The Mario Series, Techmo Super Bowl, Battletoads, Where In The World Is Carmen San Diego?, the original Metal Gear (impossible game), Duck Hunt, Track & Field (with the pad of course)… need I say more… Excitebike, Blades of Steel, Magic Johnson’s Fast Break, TMNT… ok I am done. But this proves the point, new systems have to sell the buyer on a new plot, game play, system, while NES already is ingrained and no matter what I probably will not forget how to play these games… Sorry I forgot about Megaman.

Secondly since we were children when we played these games, we create a fantasy that the games are better than they are. Lets be honest I remember when I was five or six and struggled getting far in Duck Hunt, I mean those God damn ducks sure know how to fly. But just this last week I sat down and got to level 17 on the first try… had I ever gotten to that level before? It is tough to say but obviously not with the same ease as I did the other day. Just today I sat down and played Techmo Bowl again, and I forgot how limited the play selection is compared to the 100-page (exaggeration) playbook of the Madden games. But that simplicity adds also something to the game that kids of the post NES generation do not understand.

So how good is Nintendo? Amazing and it will always stay that way no matter what kind of video games are coming out next.