Mario isn’t the only one celebrating a 25 year anniversary. This week, a quarter of a century ago, Nintendo released the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in limited parts of North America.
The NES was the console that really got me into gaming in a big way. Sure, I had previously played Commodores and the like, but I spent more time loading from floppy disks then actually playing games. The NES then burst onto the scene with its easy to play carts that loaded in a flash and taught a whole generation of kids that if something didn’t work, simply blow the dust off, give it a little tap and try again.
Nintendo of America officially discontinued the NES in 1995, yet it proved to be so popular that Nintendo of Japan kept producing new NES units until September 2003, and continued to repair old ones until October 31, 2007. During this period there were many classic games released. Some found fame, whilst others never made their mark, and now a couple of TSA writers remember their favourite NES gaming moments.
Dan Lee
Life Force Salamander
I remember it was a Christmas morning when I opened a well wrapped present, only to find it was a NES that lay beneath. Accompanying it was a copy of Konami’s ‘Life Force Salamander’ – a spin-off of side scrolling space shooter ‘Gradius’. At the time I remember thinking it was a complete revelation, with fast, slick gameplay, a fantastic power up system and levels that scrolled both horizontally AND vertically! I vividly remember the first boss too; a giant brain that could only be destroyed by firing at its eye. It turns out that in the hierarchy of life, laser beams beat giant brains; who knew?
Isolated Warrior
Ah good old Max Maverick, protagonist in this isometric shooting game. Despite being ordered to evacuate his home planet ‘Pan’ due to alien invasion, he decides to stay and kick ass (whilst possibly chewing gum). Collecting weapon upgrades was they key to success, and you could even control a couple of vehicles to help wipe out the alien menace. Looking back I’m not quite sure why I loved this game so much, but I did, and that’s why it’s here.
Solstice
Solstice stood out for me because it was the first game I played that simply let you get on with it without much handholding. Taking control of a wizard named ‘Shadax’, it was your job to search out the six pieces of the ‘Staff of Demnos’ – the only thing capable of defeating the evil wizard Morbius the Malevolent. This involved searching various puzzle filled rooms, where stealth was favourable over brawn. I loved this game as it didn’t force you down a set path and you could explore the rooms at will. The isometric view did cause a few missed jumps though as it was hard to make out the distance between certain objects.
Colossalblue
Double Dragon
This was a brawler. Side-scrolling and one player at a time (2-player mode was chances each, I think). Even the enemies only came two at a time and were always identical. I liked to think of them as little tag-teams as I punched and kicked their faces off and tried to avoid being sent home by my friend’s mum. It was like starring in my own ’80s action movie. I had the torn off denim jacket, the bad hair and the singular focus on punching dudes and saving my lady. It turned out that it was your brother who was the baddy too. That was another idea I could fully get behind.
Super Mario Bros.
I suppose there’s no title more obvious than this one. I still don’t think that the jumping mechanics of the early Mario games has ever been improved upon. It focused on doing one thing to further the game-play – jumping – and that was done perfectly. Super Mario Bros. just got platforming perfectly right. The powers, enemies, traps and two player mode were all like little revelations as I sat, cross-legged, in the middle of my mate’s living room floor. I still have entire days where my brain plays back the theme music and sound effects that first featured in this game. It was just a perfect platform game. It was also Mario before he ever met that stupid, long-tongued dinosaur so I can’t think of a single bad point!
Nofi
Excitebike
For me, this encapsulates everything that was utterly pure and brilliant about the NES. Simple splash screen, simple graphics and simple controls meant that the game had zero barriers to entry for anyone, and as a result competition was rife. Essentially you control a rider on a motorbike as he races his competitors across a series of increasingly tricky courses, but always from left to right on a pseudo 3D plain (you could go into and out of the screen to avoid puddles and hit ramps). Think Joe Danger mixed with Trials HD but without all the fluff, as stripped back to the bare basics Excitebike manages to remain timeless and still completely playable today.
The clever twist is that your turbo boost generates heat, so you can only use it sparingly, and it’s this technique that separates the men from the boys, knowing when to boost, which ramps to hit might seem like learning by rote but it soon becomes instinctive and once you start factoring in your bike’s position on takeoff and landing you’ve got a surprisingly deep system that’s only required if you really want to challenge the time and beat the game on its hardest levels.
The ultimate real why I still adore Excitebike, though, is the design mode. In 1984 this was practically unheard of, and although here in Europe you couldn’t save the tracks (you could in Japan) the game gave you plenty of ramps and obstacles to play wherever you wanted on your own tracks, and then you could race them in both time trial and against the NES – building insane jumps and watching the computer players trying to get over them was great fun. The only single problem was a lack of multiplayer on the game’s original release.
So readers, do you have any lasting memories of the NES? A favourite games perhaps? Or maybe even a funny story about breaking controllers because you couldn’t beat a level in Super Mario Bros. 2? (I NEVER did that…). Happy 25th, NES! You don’t look a day over 21!
cc_star
Great article, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a NES in the flesh, my mates and myself all had Master Systems. I enjoyed a lot of NES ports though
payasyoutext
Memories…….
chadvindara
Paperboy and Duckhunt with the orange gun were favourites of mine too!
Yahavage
I never owned a NES, although my cousins had one so I used to get to play when I went there. Only remember them having Mario for it though. I remember as a child getting first a gameboy, then a SNES, and my Nanna had a master system and then a megadrive for me and my brother at her house. Ah, the good old days :)
bap10
Oh the NES my first console, which I got at christmas. What a Christmas that was. Super Mario Bros 3 was the game for me. Even pulled a sick day from primary school to complete it. Hope my mum is not reading this.
bap10
Did anybody read the Mean Machines magazine that was about back then. Every month was like a Dandy annual packed full of news and reviews, for every console you could think of.
Dan Lee
Vaguely! Mags were awesome back then.
bap10
Maybe this site might jog your memory.
http://www.meanmachinesmag.co.uk/
Dam you TSA meant to be helping with house work.
Dan Lee
That is awesome, just looking through all the old review archives which are bringing back loads of memories
cc_star
It’s not just old reviews on there, they’re adding a retrospectives to those reviews.
Follow @MeanMachinesMag on Twitter for updates
I have all of those mags, just seeing the cover makes me go all misty eyed, and then when it split to Mean Machine SEGA and Mean Machines Nintendo, I carried on collecting all the SEGA one’s whilst my SNES owning mate collected all the Ninty one’s
It was much better than SEGA Power which I remember was printed on newspaper with a magazine glossy cover. C&VG was too Amiga biased for me, although I still bought it regularly
MadBoJangles
I used to read Mean Machines and C+VG :)
stonyk
what about Snake Rattle ‘n’ Roll. I remember the game play but not sure the name of the game. Great memories of being young!
Dan Lee
Spent so much time on that game trying to reach the secret rocket at the end of level one which would warp you to new levels!
Liberi Fatali
It was all about Sega back then for me heh-heh, I never played a NES game until I got a Wii I guess. Megaman, Ghosts & Goblins and Castlevania were pretty good.
KeRaSh
I got my NES for Christmas when I was 8 years old and it’s still the best Christmas present I have ever gotten (or is it I have got? Damn my English…) (22 years old). Games that I still remember fondly are Snake Rattle ‘n Roll, Super Mario Bros. 1-3 (3 being my favourite), Contra and Top Gun (never made it past the second Level…). Good times indeed.
Dan Lee
I remember Top Gun because my dad completed the game before me…oh the humiliation
MadJunkBoy
My older brother and sister owned a NES, great fun playin’=)
games like Super mario bros, paperboy, mega man 2(best 8 bit game ever, maybe THE best game ever), tetris, a fun football game with no refree and rygar…. never played any of those games named in the article except mario bros…. stopped almost playin’ NES after i got a PS2 almost 10 years ago…ahh, but u never forget the good old times=)
bap10
Mega man 2 was great, bought it of a mate for £2!!!. I had that Football game and Tetris on the same cartridge, the football game normally just turned into a brawl and could be with 4 players. Great fun. Cobra Triangle was pretty good to.