Favourite Game Candidates: NES Games 1

I didn't have a NES when I was younger. My best friend and next door neighbour Ross had one so I did get to play a fair number of games. I later bought a NES from some guy at a scunt in University (my house was the Math team headquarters so lots of random stuff was carted over) and played a few games then. I'm thinking this list should probably be split into two. One covering games I liked as a child and one for games I liked as an adult. Here's the early stuff!

Hey Mikey... All you're good for is diffusing bombs!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - It makes me sad to admit that I have still never beaten this game. When I was a kid we used to play with each of us taking a different one of the turtles. So if we wanted to make use of Donatello's long reach I got to play. I believe my brother was Raphael, Ross was Leonardo, and Ryan was Michaelangelo. It was a lot of fun playing like that, and a lot of fun playing by myself too. I'm pretty sure I've made it to the final dungeon a few times... Now that I have an xBox controller for my computer I should try loading this up in an emulator again to see if I can finally beat a 'Nintendo hard' game.

Ew, radish!

Super Mario Bros 2 - Did you know this game wasn't supposed to be a Mario game at all? Nintendo decided the real Mario 2 wasn't going to cut it in the US since it was too hard and too similar to the first Mario. So they took a different game, reskinned it to look like Mario, and sold it to us anyway. This game was interesting in that it was a platformer with 4 different characters each of which had a different strength. We played this the same way we played TMNT. I got to be Princess! She was the best character in my eyes because she broke one of the fundamental rules of the game: gravity! She could hover in the air for a while after jumping which let her do things no other character could even think about doing. Toad could dig faster... So what?

Got wood?

Mega Man 2 - Really all of the NES Mega Man games could make it on this list, but this one was the first one we really played and remains my favourite of the series. It didn't have a lot of the later features which I felt got in the way of the games. Stupid dog! There are a lot of people who'll say the Mario series of games are the best platformers but I think the Mega Man games are the top of the pile. I really like the way each boss is weak to one of the weapons from another boss so there was an 'optimal' sequence of bosses to fight but the game was still playable in any order. It let you apply smarts to make the games easier which I always like. Then the platforming itself is great. Not too much going on and not too little going on. Just a right amount of stuff going on! Great music, too.

Fly, my pretty!

8 Eyes - This was an interesting little platformer that featured a really neat co-op mode. One of you controlled the human character and the other one controlled the bird! I don't think we ever really figured out how to play the game properly and it was practically impossible to play single player but I've always liked the concept.

Chip is apparently a third the size of a Smurf.

Chip n Dale Rescue Rangers - Yet another platformer! This one was based on the cartoon show Chip n Dale's Rescue Rangers. I don't actually remember much about this game, just that I used to like playing it.

Microwaved for 11 minutes and 20 seconds?

Maniac Mansion - A non-platformer! Once again, I don't remember a lot about the game other than that it was unlike anything we'd ever played before. Also, I'd always thought the game was based on the tv show but it turns out the tv show was based on the game! That's really surprising to me.

Super Dodge Ball - I actually found an emulated version of this game on a website a couple weeks ago and played it for a bit. It isn't anywhere near as fun as my memory lead me to believe. I remember having a ton of fun playing this game as a kid, with passing the ball around and then using super moves! Playing it again did make me want to play some real dodgeball though...