20 Years of NES 333
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."
where's the article? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:where's the article? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:where's the article? (Score:2)
Cheer, danke, etc. for the tip.
Re:where's the article? (Score:2)
Not a bad heuristic, really...
Re:where's the article? (Score:2)
Click on the images. They're a form of navigation, not ads. You'll note that they say "monday", "tuesday", "wednesday", etc. The series is only half complete.
Re:where's the article? (Score:4, Funny)
Damn! And I was waiting for them to put Saturdays up for sale. I don't have nearly enough of them.
ArticleS (yes, plural) Here (Score:3, Insightful)
Tuesday [1up.com] - NES turns 20: EGM celebrates two decades of NES Mania
Wednesday [1up.com] - Solid Gold: You picked 'em, we praise 'em. 1UP's top 15 NES games.
And for the bandwidth savvy:
Monday [nyud.net] Tuesday [nyud.net] Wednesday [nyud.net]
Ah, Good Times... (Score:5, Funny)
And I still have the bad report cards to prove it!
Re:Ah, Good Times... (Score:5, Funny)
THAT'S IT... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:THAT'S IT... (Score:2)
The Atari 2600 had upset folks
What about Intellivision and Colecovision? Way cooler and more powerful than Atari. And while bad games had been an issue, it was hardly the reason for the game recession
Re:THAT'S IT... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:THAT'S IT... (Score:5, Funny)
(Seriously, though, my first console was ColecoVision, so I've already felt old for a while.)
Re:THAT'S IT... (Score:2)
I was 2, maybe 3 at the time. With the control knobs built on to the box it was pretty easy to just sit back and play using your toes.
It was a sturdy little box too. It took my abuse for a few years.
NES (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:NES (Score:5, Funny)
Did you try to complete ET and loose 20 years through a nervous breakdown
Re:NES (Score:2)
America hated video games... (Score:5, Funny)
Trip down memory lane (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Trip down memory lane (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Trip down memory lane (Score:3, Interesting)
Nintendo has always amused me with their business tactics. They are as conniving and controlling as Microsoft or Sony, but since they only seem to want to rule their corner of the video game world with an iron fist (rather than using that control as a lever to get into every aspect of the electronics world, like the other two) it has seemed more amusing than disturbin
Re:Trip down memory lane (Score:2)
The thing is, the whole point of a console is that it Just Works. If some non-authorized 3rd party releases bad code that causes problems, that would reflect very badly on the make of the console.
Re:Trip down memory lane (Score:2)
Of course, of course! Just like Microsoft's driver quality program (whatever they call it, don't care) is just there to make sure your hardware works well with Windows. Now, in order for us to perform the quality tests needed, you'll have to pay us $X, and sign this agreement saying you won't make any games for other consoles...
Re:Trip down memory lane (Score:5, Informative)
If you'd read Game Over, you know the seal was part of a program to keep publishers from flooding the market; it wasn't to keep bad games from getting through, it was to to keep a metric fuckload of crap games from getting through (ala 2600). The seal was Nintendo's PR way of telling potential consumers that it wasn't going to be the cause of another Dark Age of Video Games.
Nintendo also had a strict policy of limiting the number of titles a publisher could release in a year. They could still get away with crap games, but then they'd have to rely on that crap game for income before they're allowed to have another shot at finding player love.
Unauthorized Games (Score:2)
Here I found a link that gives a bit of a run down between all the different unauthorized
Re:Unauthorized Games (Score:2, Insightful)
Lawyers. Tengen (among others) reverse-engineered the lock-out chip and then fought Nintendo in court until they were able to use their work-around.
Tales from the 8-bit era (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [wisdomtreegames.com] and still printing carts for the gameboy color.
The 10NES chip certainly made for some interesting stories.
Re:Trip down memory lane (Score:5, Funny)
One where you leave a trail of death behind as you fight to rescue the human oppressor that subjugates the indiginous fungo-sapien population.
And the other where you blow the crap out of ducks and, after missing a few times, attempt to blast the smartass dog.
I don't even want to think about the mass genocide in Metroid...
"Adult Gamers" (Score:5, Insightful)
Whichever system had the best NBA 2K or Madden game won the pack. The others followed suit.
Re:Trip down memory lane (Score:2)
While I can understand N's relucta
Re:Trip down memory lane (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, Nintendo forced them to recolor the blood as vomit in the first version, then relaxed their requirement for later releases based on fan pushback.
At the time it was considered that Nintendo was being far too strict. If only we could have seen the slippery slope ahead of us.
Re:Trip down memory lane (Score:2)
As if just having the characters puking all over wouldn't be bad enough. I thought that was more disturbing than the blood!
Heh. If I could have seen the slippery slope and where it would lead us, I would have been cheering them on. No, really. I liked Eternal Darkness a lot and want them to make more games lik
Re:Trip down memory lane (Score:2)
What is it with old people and their constant condescention when comparing eras of time? I, and a lot of others, find today's bloody games to be fun and exciting. Sure the market's flooded now with 3D FPSs, but that doesn't mean that there aren't any gems out there. Doom3 had me on the edge of my seat for hours, I can't say the same thing about some chubby plumber busting rocks...
Re:Trip down memory lane (Score:2, Insightful)
Ahh! NES! (Score:3, Informative)
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!
Re:Ahh! NES! (Score:5, Funny)
Uhh...Blaster Master?? (Score:2)
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...
Re:Uhh...Blaster Master?? (Score:2)
Re:Uhh...Blaster Master?? (Score:2)
Battle of Olympus.
Re:Ahh! NES! (Score:2)
Still Got Mine! (Score:2, Interesting)
It actually gets more play time than my Gamecube, PS2, or PSP...
Re:Still Got Mine! (Score:3, Funny)
has been hooked up ever since (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe it is time to move out of your parents' house.
Boo. (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Boo. (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft still are doing it .
Re:Boo. (Score:2)
Microsoft still are doing it
Yes, but Nintendo paved the way for what M$ does now. You should blame and bash Nintendo, but nooo, you all have your "bias blinders" on and unconditionally love anything Nintendo does these days.
Re:Boo. (Score:2, Insightful)
There's nothing wrong with liking someone who was once a criminal, and has since reformed (I won't get into the merits of punishment). It's also silly to say that I should blame one person for another's crimes, i.e. the reformed person, because "he did it first!"
Re:Boo. (Score:2)
You sure about that? See below. MS announces something pro-consumer, and everyone bases them (as usual) and assumes evil intentions...
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10
Re:Boo. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not the same (Score:3, Insightful)
User base? (Score:2, Insightful)
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?
Re:Boo. (Score:2)
Because what Nintendo forced us to buy in the 1980's and 1990's was actually good, perhaps not even needing market coercion.
Yeah, we're whipped, but Nintendo is that fine-ass chick that makes being whipped oh so worth it (think of a certain Bill Withers song, if you're old enough). Microsoft... isn't.
"I look forward to thei
Re:Boo. (Score:4, Insightful)
Top 15 games as posted by 1up: (Score:4, Informative)
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
Re:Top 15 games as posted by 1up: (Score:2)
Silent Service
Rampart
Crystalis
Metroid
Castlevania III
Skate or Die
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Nevermind. Some of those sucked. I like my PC better.
Re:Top 15 games as posted by 1up: (Score:2)
Re:Top 15 games as posted by 1up: (Score:2)
Metal Gear - This was the premier 'stealth' based game. And who can forget "the truck have started to move"?
Castlevania. (I'd say 2 and 3 of the series were equally awesome, but in different ways. 2 with the RPG elements and open map, and 3 with the
NES #1? Ignorance. (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:NES #1? Ignorance. (Score:2)
Re:NES #1? Ignorance. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:NES #1? Ignorance. (Score:2)
Buckner & Garcia have an official site [bucknergarcia.com] 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.
Re:NES #1? Ignorance. (Score:2)
Re:NES #1? Ignorance. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
NES robot (Score:2)
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?
Re:NES robot (Score:2)
Re:NES robot (Score:2)
Here's roughly (from my twenty year old memories) how Gyromite worked: You tried to navigate some guy through a side-scrolling platform maze which featured movable red and blue columns. Raising one color of columns would lower the other, and coordinating this was the basic challenge of the game.
It was essentially a two-player game, and with another human it act
Re:NES #1? Ignorance. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:NES #1? Ignorance. (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:NES #1? Ignorance. (Score:2)
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!
SNES (Score:4, Funny)
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 love the old NES! (Score:2)
Super Mario Bros. Super Show (Score:5, Informative)
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
must be, because near the end of its life there were oodles of crap games out there. granted, it didn't take a PhD to guess which games would suck, if you played games, but for parents trying to buy games for kids it was a nightmare. keep in mind, also, there was no ign or slashdot to clue anyone in on game quality. ET wasn't alone in its suckitude either. PacMan was just as evil, maybe moreso given its arcade cousin. come to think of it, just about A
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Informative)
Keep in mind the time period. The 2600 was released in 1977 though the more common version was released in 1982, and games were limited to 4K IIRC and not even 1K of system RAM. The NES was released in 1987 IIRC.
What they are describing is the console market crash of 1983. The parent might have not noticed this crash because games for the consoles were still plentyful, just the companies who made them folded and they ended up marked down to 5 bucks at Toys R Us. Remember the Adam, TI, Timex-Sinclair, Intelivision? Poof by 1984. Quite sad as all were pretty good products, well except the Timex. But there was much in the way of crap during that time as you pointed out, but a few gems here and there. For some reason though the atari 5200 and 7800 didn't become very popular, which isn't shocking as Atari's focus by this point was in a computer.
Commodore and Atari stuck around for a good long while though... though the Commodore was very much stronger in the game department.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_2600 [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Entertainme
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
The conventional wisdom (I am not sure if it is true) is that Atari made a huge mistake in letting almost any third-party release games for the 2600. There were hundreds of bad games.
Yah, I know there were tons of bad games available, but blaming that for the crash is just nonsense. There's thousands of terrible games available for the PC. I recall terrible games being available for the C64. I don't recall either of these game platforms dying.
All these platforms (including the 2600) suceeded because of t
Tecmo Super Bowl? (Score:2, Interesting)
Jaws..... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Jaws..... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Jaws..... (Score:2)
Battletoads was an awesome game!
NES inspired music (Score:3, Interesting)
Minibosses [minibosses.com]
Redefined - Nintendo A Cappella [slashdot.org]
All Your Bass A Cappella [www.iki.fi]
http://www.pressplayontape.com/ [pressplayontape.com]
No Games? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Some others... (Score:2)
to add a few more:
duckhunt
baseball stars
donkey kong jr.
cobra triangle
3d world runner
rad racer
rc pro-am
faxanadu
Unhappy with Atari? (Score:3, Interesting)
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...!").
Re:Unhappy with Atari? (Score:2)
I distinctly remember giving my dad the second joypad of the Atari 2600, while I went along playing Space Invaders (leaving him under the illusion he was doing great). :)
This only backstabbed me once "he" set a nice record and he would brag about it the whole week
Hot Air? (Score:2, Informative)
The smart folk simply breathed hot air into them, thus forming a little condensation mositure onto the cartridge slot contacts.
worked every time.
Re:Hot Air? (Score:2)
And some people even took a bit of dust out from under the carpet, rubbed the cartridge in it, and then returned it to the video-rental place, claiming that 'Total Recall' (or whatever else crappy game that got rented on a meager allowance) did not work :)
*cough*
'Course I'm not talking bout me, but a friend...
*cracks*
Ok, I was 12 at the time, ok, twelve !
Re:Hot Air? (Score:2)
I used Febreeze on a faulty GBA link connector recently and it worked like a charm. You'll never have to blow on your games again!
My Mother (Score:4, Interesting)
NES was a family tradition with us, after dinner we'd all sit around and play duck hunt or Mario Brothers.
Hated? What hate? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hated? What hate? (Score:2)
Hot sex scene. (Score:3, Funny)
That three-some between Mario, Lugi, and the Princess was hot.
Needless to say, my mom threw out my NES system.
Sweet Mini-ITX mod (Score:2, Interesting)
BTW, my top 5 games:
US Copyrights (Score:3, Insightful)
Intellectual property laws: they work so you don't have to.
20 years - will it be 20 more? (Score:2)
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 borin
never appreciated the NES (Score:2)
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.
Modern Hardware for use with your NES (Score:4, Informative)
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 [tripoint.org] is the original site for the CopyNES. However, it shows an older version of the hardware. The creator announced in this thread [parodius.com] 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.
The ol' switcheroo (Score:3, Interesting)
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".
Re:Antitrust (Score:3, Insightful)
As always, the reason they got nailed was not because they were a monopoly, but because they abused that position to eliminate competition.
Re:A+B (Score:2, Funny)