Tag: Super NES

Dr. Mario: A look back at an iconic game

For most people who had a Game Boy throughout the 90’s, Tetris was all the rage. The game was all about stacking falling blacks into patterns to clear the screen. I didn’t get my Game Boy until 1998, in the form of a Game Boy Pocket. And yes, Tetris was the first game I picked up to play on the wonderful little device. Yet there is one more puzzle game that I think deserves even more recognition that good old Tetris. Of course I am talking about Dr. Mario.

My first exposure to the game was in the form of a goofy TV commercial with that witch doctor song as the backdrop. I was pretty young at the time, probably seven or eight, so I didn’t know it was actually a real song. I just thought it was made up for that commercial. It wouldn’t be until seeing the iconic story of first love, My Girl, before I learned it was a real song. That’s besides the point.

Since I didn’t have a Game Boy I played the NES version. Now if you think that made it any easier you would be wrong. See we were pretty poor so the spare TV I had set up in my bedroom that we used to hook the NES up to was one of those old little tube sets with the rabbit ears and the UHF/VHS channel dials on the front. It also didn’t have coaxial inputs, we had to use one of those adapters with the y shaped prongs, you know which ones I mean if you had an Atari or similar console. Anyways the real issue was, it was an old TV which meant it was black and white. Now this was the same TV that brought me the magical wonder of the Atari in all it’s glory, so I was pretty used to playing games with no color. My first experience with Super Mario Bros. in fact was on that black and white set. So let me tell you the fact I got good enough to beat level 20 playing on a black and white TV should tell you how dedicated I was to that game. Oh, and it was a 3-day rental so I had to learn the game and get good at it in a very short time span. I instantly fell in love with that game.

Dr. Mario, for those that don’t know, is a puzzle game where the goal is to line up multi colored pills to match colored viruses. It sounds easy but if you take the colors out it’s much harder. This was back in the NES days when I still flipped through the manuals to read the story. I forget what it was but the fact it actually had some sort of narrative to justify Mario throwing pills into a jar was really cool to me. I kind of miss the days where you really had to use your imagination to flesh out the story for our video games. I kind of get sick of playing interactive movies. Not that I think modern games all suck, but still there is something special about a simple game with a straightforward objective, in this case clear the screen of colored viruses.

One thing I enjoyed about the game was the animations the viruses made. The way they danced around the petri dish in rhythm with the music. Or the way they would fall down kicking and screaming when you killed one of the viruses in the bottle. The game was pure magic. I even picked up the Game Boy version a few years later. I didn’t play it much. I wouldn’t actually play a handheld version again until I got the Classic NES edition for the GBA.

I also loved the music in this game. Like many puzzle games you really didn’t have very many tracks to chose from. But the few you did were still really great. I preferred the slower, angrier track to the happy up beat circus sounding music.

This isn’t so much a review of the game as just a trip down memory lane. I would spend hours playing this game. I had a few other versions over the years too. I bought Tetris/Dr. Mario for the Super NES during it’s heyday. I skipped the N64 Dr. Mario but I did have the Classic NES one on GBA. I also played Dr. Luigi on Wii U and there was a Dr. Mario On Wii but I think it was online only and I skipped that one too. I try to stick to the NES as my preferred way to enjoy this classic puzzle game starring my favorite video game character by far.

 

 

30 SNES games for a new collector to begin with

Now for whatever reason you didn’t already have one of, if not *the* greatest video game consoles of all time, well nobody is judging you, here is a list of 30 games to probably get you into collecting. Like my previous lists, I want to avoid too many of the obvious picks, instead focusing on games that really give you a good variety of popular and less known, but not exactly the “hidden gems” everyone talks about.

Like my other lists these are only numbered to keep track, they are not ranked.

1. Super Mario World

If this isn’t the first game you pick up with your new Super Nintendo, what the HELL are you doing collecting SNES for? Seriously it was the most iconic game of the 16-bit era, probably the best of the Super Mario games, at the very least *the* best of the 2D Super Mario games, it’s one of the greatest video games of all time. So yeah, day one pick this up it’s almost mandatory at this point.

2. Mortal Kombat II

Just like how on Genesis you can buy MK1 and skip the rest, do that with SNES but buy MKII and pretend the rest don’t exist. Not only is this the best home version of one of the best 2D arcade fighting games ever made, it’s still a pretty solid game for the SNES library. Also skip Killer Instinct, everyone says that game, we all know it was just a Mortal Kombat cash in clone so let it go.

3. Super Star Wars

I normally don’t pick Star Wars games for general collectors, they tend to be more geared to hard core gamers and die hard Star Wars fans. While this game *IS* hard, even on the easiest setting it will challenge all but the most seasoned gamers, it’s also a very good game, even if it was stripped of the Star Wars license. It has great level design, epic boss battles, makes fantastic use of the Mode 7 psuedo-3D and it just has a great sci-fi/space fantasy vibe that makes for a great action video game.

4. Kendo Rage

Before you say now wait a minute you said no hidden gems. This game is not a “hidden gem” by my definition, in fact I consider it even more obscure than that. How obscure? Well I had the game as a kid, loved it played it to death, and it took me YEARS of combing used video game stores before I stumbled upon another copy and if i hadn’t asked the clerk to help me identify the games I was describing, I might not have recognized it at first, the game is obscure. Also it’s hard. I love it because it has a good weird mix of Castlevania, Ghosts N Goblins, with some Sailor Moon and Kirby Super Star, okay I know that’s a weird combination of games, but trust me that’s the best way to describe this game so yeah do some ebay digging and see if you can get a copy, trust me it’s worth it.

5. Donkey Kong Country

The typical response is grab the trilogy and have at it. Okay look there are over 700 games on the SNES and if you spend all your time going after the super popular Nintendo 1st party titles your going to miss out, so grab the first one, it will hold you over and is a masterpiece in it’s own right, and have fun. Make sure this game is in your first 30 purchases the rest can come later, hell maybe make then 31 and 32 respectively I don’t care but keep them out of the first 30, trust me you won’t regret mixing it up with a little variety.

6. Legend of Zelda- A Link to the Past

Arguably the best Zelda game ever made, easily the best 2-D Zelda and certainly one of the best Super NES games, you have the rest of your days as a collector to go chasing the JRPG’s and the shmups, but you can’t go wrong with getting Zelda early on.

7. Battletoads and Double Dragon

I will get this out of the way, the SNES is flooded with arcade fighting games, shoot em ups and JRPG’s. The Genesis does the first two FAR BETTER so stick to getting those games on Sega, as for the JRPG’s, well there are a ton, they are pretty much all the same in some way or another, no there is a lot of time to chase those too popular, too expensive and over hyped games, grab yourself a grade A 90’s arcade style mash up featuring martial arts bad asses along side some mutant frogs. This is sci-fi arcade beat em up at it’s best. Yeah the game is also on Sega but let’s not get into that now.

8. Bust A Move (Puzzle Bobble)

Everyone is going to tell you get Tetris this or Dr. Mario that, yeah well tell them to shut up those games are best on the Game Boy, the only GOOD puzzle game exclusive (in a way) to the SNES is Bust A Move, the Taito arcade classic semi-sequel to Bubble Bobble on the NES. I say sorta, but let’s not spit hairs this is a great, ultra fun, vibrantly colorful chipper game you can’t pass up for too long. Hidden gem, no, ultra rare probably over priced, maybe, at least rare the price is well worth it this game is AMAZING.

9. Batman and Robin

There are a million and one Batman games, this is the one to get on the Super Nintendo.

10. Super Ghosts N Goblins

Arcade games are fun. Sequels of arcade games that beat the original are easily twice the fun, oh and this time it’s 16-bit. Yeah these games are short but hard, hey whatever they are still great fun and this is still as good as, if not better than, the Sega game.

11. Sim City

I don’t just put this on here because it actually, literally, is my absolute favorite Super Nintendo game of all time, no seriously I play this game almost as much as I do Minecraft, which I play more than I should care to admit. But it’s still a great game to add early on to your SNES library to show you the depth of the consoles variety while also giving you a fun Nintendo take on the Sim genre. There are a ton of Sim games on the console but the original is a good place to start. It has KING BOWSER KOOPA what more do you want?!

12. Kirby Super Star

Like the Mario and DKC games, you will inevitably buy them all, or at the very least a good lot in due time. Why not start with one of the easiest to pick up and play games in the saga? This game has a ton of variety and is one of the best Kirby games ever made. The other games do what they do better in their own way, but this game gives you a sample of all the things Kirby is known for so it’s a great starting point and the theme song will get stuck in your head. It is already stuck in your head isn’t it? Don’t lie yes it is.

13. Robocop vs. The Terminator

While the SNES is more known for it’s RPG’s and Platformers and Sega for it’s sci-fi themed games, and this game is on Genesis, this is still the better version to get, and it’s a GREAT game with tons of fun and a whole bunch of replay value.

14. Zombies At My Neighbors

This is like Zelda, everyone is going to suggest it and there is no point in putting it off, see a copy pick it up.

15. Super Metroid

Again, I must stress, this list is not RANKED so for the love of all things that is good, if you get a SNES and you get a chance to buy this game, don’t hesitate or wait because it’s not far enough on the list, it very well could be the number 1 reason to get a Super Nintendo for a lot of people. This is the game that really started the “Metroidvania” style of game play that would be very common later on.

16. Super Mario RPG

Again, the console is WELL KNOWN for it’s RPG games, and Earthbound is NOT worth the asking price so you might as well get the Mario/Final Fantasy cross over and do yourself a favor. If you really want to experience the SNES at it’s fullest potential yes you will need some JRPG’s eventually, but damn I can’t stress this enough, they are expensive because EVERYONE wants them, so get this one to hold you over and get you started, it’s fine the game is 5 star, it’s a perfect ten, I mean it’s a great game you won’t regret it.

17. Super Mario All-Stars

Okay, yeah it’s just a collection of the 8-bit games redone with new 16-bit graphics and sounds, and yeah it just adds customizable controls, and oh yeah it also adds save states, but um, why am I having to sell you on this, IT’S a collection of the 3 most iconic games in HISTORY with SAVE STATES and NEW graphics, this is arguably the first true video game “remaster” by some definitions and it’s one hell of a starting off point.

18. Mega Man X

The best 2D Mega Man game ever made? That’s for you to decide. No I lied, the gaming community decided when this game was released and our collective opinion remains unchanged. This. Game. Is. GREAT. ‘Nuff Said. Okay fine not sold, take everything fun from Mega Man games and multiply that by a dozen, beef it up to 16-bit goodness, throw in a super cool hidden SFII reference, throw away all the crap that bogged down the not-so-good Mega Man games and throw it onto the greatest game console that the Big N has ever released and you got your self a game you need in your collection yesterday.

19. NBA Jam

If I didn’t put this on my Sega list, I should have or very well could have. This game is easily one of the best, and hands down the most iconic and recognizable arcade basketball, maybe even sports game, of all time. Throw it into your SNES, plug the Red and White audio cables into your stereo, crank up the bass along with the volume and bust out those dunks that make the announcer scream BOOM SHAKA LAKA all night long.

20. Spider-Man/Venom Maximum Carnage

While the Sega fans got the better stand alone Spidey game, the SNES got this game, okay it was on Sega also but this is not the Sega list it’s my Super Nintendo list. Damn why were the 16-bit console wars so damn great? Anyways this is probably the best brawler/beat-em-up on the console, aside from a certain turtle game I won’t mention. The SNES doesn’t do one-on-one fighting  games nearly as good as the Genesis, it does the side scrolling brawlers at least as good, if not better, so this is a very good comic book themed game to really sink your teeth into. Also you get to play as VENOM, I mean dude how is that not a thing in more Spider-Man games?

21. F-Zero

Might as well. It’s fast paced, futuristic sci-fi racing what could go wrong? This was one of the earliest games to show off the systems “mode 7” capability and it was all we gamers needed to know this machine was the real deal. Since Nintendo doesn’t seem to care to make any new games in the series any time soon, why not go back to the one that started it all?

22. Final Fantasy 3

If you count this game higher than 3, go back to Japan. This is the one we all played, for many of us, myself included, this was *THE* entry point into the JRPG genre and for most it was also the template we measured all future JRPG games against. This and Super Mario are probably the easiest to get into and the best place for an entry point for someone that doesn’t want to get overwhelmed with these text heavy games too early on. There are plenty of RPG’s on the console and you have the rest of your life to seek them out, this needs to be in your collection before pretty much all the rest of them, aside from Mario that is. This game defined the genre for a generation and it wasn’t surpassed until it’s direct (but incorrectly numbered, stupid Japanese) sequel.

23. Super Bomberman

If you don’t get yourself a Super Multi-Tap for some sweet 5-player Super Bomberman pretty much as soon as you can then you are cheating yourself out of a fantastic experience. There might not be that many games that use the multi tap that are worth owning, but this game is worth the price of admission all by itself. Pretty much any console that has a Bomberman game that supports 4 or more players is going to be high on any wish list. Treat yourself and your gaming friends (and even your non-gaming friends its casual friendly) to a night of blasting bombs at one another.

24. Knights of the Round

Sticking to the theme of playing to the systems strengths, here is another worth while side-scrolling arcade brawler that is sure to keep you entertained for several hours. The game is set in a fantasy world, and I honestly confused this for Golden Axe when I was a kid, so you can bet my surprise when I plugged Golden Axe into my Genesis and I was so furious. I played this game at a Pizza Hut long ago and dropped so many quarters into it every time I got the chance. The gameplay holds up today, the music and characters are still very well done and the level design is what you want in an arcade beat-em-up from the 90’s.

25. Super Castlevania 4

There is a never ending debate on the internet, which 16-bit console was better Super NES or Sega Genesis. A similar debate is which Castlevania game was better, this one or Symphony of the Night, (I throw my lot in with SOTN but to each their own) still this very game is at the heart of that debate and one of the reasons a die-hard self-proclaimed Sega fanboy like myself still freely admits the Super NES is probably the greatest game console of all time. Sure Bloodlines on Genesis is a good enough Castlevania game, but why settle for good enough when you can get the real deal, and this game is the real deal. Think of it like this, this games is the Empire Strikes Back of the Castlevania series, it’s that good. If I wasn’t such a Sega fan I would say this game and a handful of others would be all you need as a gamer. Needless to say, this was one of the games that, almost, made me switch sides from being Pro-Sega anti-Nintendo to very much a Nintendo loyalist. Even the prospect of just a port of this gaming coming to a new Nintendo console is usually enough to get my attention.

26. Primal Rage

Again, fighting games are almost always better on the Sega Genesis, that’s pretty much a given unless you live in a weird bubble where the 6-button pads never existed, if you bring up the crappy 3-button pads in a debate I walk away, seriously nobody games with those everyone has 6-button pads and all things being equal, the 6-button pad is better, the Genesis is faster, look fighting games are best on Genesis, RPG’s are best on Super NES, let’s just agree to that. Still, Primal Rage is one of those rare fighting games that is still great even on the Super NES. (I can hear the fanboys screaming at their monitors right now, you picked this over SFII!) No I didn’t but hell, SF II is played out at this point, It’s available on so many consoles, in so many varieties, seriously at this point if you are getting into SNES collecting STAY FAR AWAY from SFII games, period. They were good, damn good, at the time, they suck by today’s standards, and I don’t mean because the arcade port is available. Look let’s focus on this game, probably the LAST arcade game Atari ever had their hands in that was worth a damn and let it be that, the Atari swan song that it is and still a FANTASTIC fighting game, actually good on the Super Nintendo. If you are serious about playing SFII, play it on any console BUT the Super NES, and ignore the fanboys who never experienced SFII the way it was meant to be played. Or at the very least, get this game first and find yourself having fun appreciating one of the rare fighting games that was good on the console and pick up those thousand SFII clones at a later time.

27. Sunset Riders

Another one of those side scrolling arcade action games the system is well known for. I know there are people who can’t look beyond the JRPG’s, but if you aren’t a fan of those don’t get so down on the Super NES just yet, I know the fanboys make it sound like those are the best games on the system, thankfully you and I aren’t fanboys, at least not Nintendo fanboys. Okay, so infighting and trolling aside, yes this is a very good game. It does have it roots in the arcade and yes there is a Sega port of this game, this one is nearly identical in most ways but as I understand it very good and you don’t want to just turn your SNES into a JRP hub up front now do you? If you like arcade games this is a great port, for what it is.

28. T2: The Arcade Game

This is another arcade game, its also a shooting game and fortunately it does support various peripherals so you can sample the different play styles. The arcade game is still better in every way but this is a good game to pluck into your SNES console and get a few minutes of great fun before you get too bored, and it’s good to come back to from time to time.

29. Super Smash TV

Notice my lists are heavy on arcade games, well there is a reason for that, they are quick and easy to pick up and play, they are often fun even today, and they really try to demonstrate what their respective console was going for. This isn’t the best version of the game ever, but it is playable, and if you get yourself a Super NES Advantage stick, or two, your good to go. This game was not just a staple of 90’s arcades, it was one of those games that got ports across the spectrum of home consoles and was well worth playing, depending on your willingness to adapt.

30. Street Fighter II Turbo

Ignore everything I just said, this is *THE* 16-bit SFII game to get. Ha, had you fanboys going for a second didn’t it. Okay, so most of what I said above is mostly true, this is still the best version of this game available on the Super NES and it’s one of the few good fighting games on the system. Super is better on Genesis, and frankly, just about any system it’s on but Super, and the original is garbage, it is just accept it and move on. But this version is still damn good, for what it is. I had a Genesis and I played SFII SCE and Super SFII all the damn time. When I did get a Super NES I fell for the lies the fanboys told me and bought these games, one by one, trying to recapture the magic of the Sega versions, to no luck. There are different opinions and if you live in a vacuum where you will never own a Sega Genesis, and play only on the Super Nintendo, I guess your 12 years old and it’s 1994 all over again, anyways, then yeah get some SFII games and have fun, but I strongly recommend getting them on anything newer and if you have to play them on a 16-bit console get the Genesis versions, with proper 6-button controls and flip the fanboys a middle finger.

There is my list, sorry if this got heated I just deal with a world that distorted the facts to a twisted reality where Sega always sucked and Super NES was always just assumed to be the best ever. Despite being an honest to god Sega fanboy, again my online handle is segagamer12, and the Genesis was my first home console I ever owned, I do freely admit the Super NES is better, but only by a very slight margin and only because of a couple of games that push it over the top. However, when it comes to fighting games, Genesis is better in almost every instance. You just have to GROW UP and stop talking about the stupid 3-button pad like here in 2017 it’s still the only joystick available for the console.

 

Chronicles of a Nintendo fan, the end of an era

Everyone has played Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong, Legend of Zelda, Duck Hunt, Wii Sports, or Pokemon at some point in their life it seems. A lot of people grew up playing some form of Nintendo. I wanted to chronicle my life as a gamer, my evolution as a Nintendo fan, and my recent decisions regarding the current state of the Nintendo I once fell in love with.

For the world it began in 1985 with the release of Duck Hunt/Super Mario Bros. combo pack. For me it began in 1987 at a laundromat in Delphos Kansas. A small town the people in the next town over haven’t even heard of. Up to that point I was an Atari guy, we had an Atari machine at our house we used to play the crap out of that thing, mostly games nobody ever remembers the names too along with a few favorites like Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Asteroids, Haunted House, etc. My arcade experience was mostly confined to Pac-Man/Ms. Pac-Man at the local bar in town we sometimes ate at as it doubled as a restaurant. Then there I was sitting in a laundromat bored out of my mind begging my mom for quarters to play one of the video games they had in the corner. I don’t for the life of me remember what the other two games were but I do remember the one I dropped my $.25 cents into, it was a game called Donkey Kong featuring this tiny man jumping over barrels and climbing ladders. At first I hated the game, man it was hard compared to Pac-Man my previous arcade favorite, but something about it kept drawing me back.

I remember it was 1987 because I was barely 5 years old, I hadn’t started Kindergarten yet, I was living in Delphos Kansas and I was born in 1982 so it had to be 1987. I also remember having mixed feelings about the game. Then we moved to another town called Minneapolis, Kansas. It was New Year’s Eve going into 1988, my family was attending a party with some friends my parents had made, this kid named Marvin who I remember very little about. What I do remember is when I asked if they had an Atari they said no, I should have been bummed but what they did have was so  much better. They took me downstairs to the play room where they kept all their toys, had the TV set up for the kids and they was this VCR-sized machine with these funny gray “tapes” stacked up beside it and the kid was holding an ugly little square controller with 2 buttons playing a game I never seen before, it was called The Legend of Zelda. He let me try it out and I was hooked immediately. Forget Atari man I wanted one of these, what were they called Intendos? I wanted one so bad. I spent the rest of that year BEGGING my parents for an Intendo I needed an Intendo bad. (yeah I didn’t learn it was Nintendo until we got one, that Christmas.)

It was the Christmas that almost didn’t happen though. See my mom had promised me a younger brother and in April of 1988 she brought me home, nope not the brother she promised, but ANOTHER sister, I mean come on I had one older and one younger than me I was surrounded by icky girls I was ready for a boy in the house to help me tear the place down. Well needless to say the “bundle of joy” came along early enough in the year there was some doubt what sort of Christmas we would end up with. Turns out most of the fears were for naught as under the tree was a present in a HUGE box larger than any we as a family had seen up to that point. Christmas Day arrives and we tear into it me and my two sisters that were old enough to do so and BEHOLD the Intendo machine I been begging for! Yeah parents made me forget that my baby brother was missing some parts. Oh well plugged my gaming machine into the TV, powered up some Duck Hunt and blasted Ducks till it was time to go back to school. Yeah it was a year after I had gotten my first taste of Nintendo before we had one in our home but man it was worth it, my tiny little six-year-old hands couldn’t be seen without a Nintendo control pad in them for a VERY long time.

Fortunately for us there were not on, not two, but THREE stores in town that rented Nintendo games so I was lucky to get to experience so many “great” games ranging from the hotly anticipated Who Framed Roger Rabbit to the nobody heard of before Little Nemo, to a bunch of games I can’t even sarcastically pretend were good because honestly I totally forgot their names they mostly sucked. Still even if the rentals were hit or miss, we had one gem at home, Super Mario Bros. Not Mario Bros. no we had SUPER Mario Bros. In the 80’s Rad, Awesome, Ultra, Super, Radical, or Mega, if your thing didn’t have one of those words in the title it wasn’t really worth your time. I played that game to death, literally poor Mario died countless deaths on his quest to save the poor princess from the evil turtle.

I don’t know if it was coincidence or what but it also happened that my favorite cartoon at the time and accompanying toy line also featured some beastly looking Turtles, so I was able to “pretend” my Leonardo action figure was “King Koopa” and any Optimus Prime action figure was Mario and I could re-create my favorite “scenes” from the game over and over, with toys. It was about this time my hobby of Nintendo began to become an obsession the likes of which would dominate my youth for many years to come.

I enjoyed the early days of the NES tremendously, randomly renting one game after another as my parents were too cheap to buy us that many games, and the few they did buy were sadly from the bargain clearance rack which meant they usually were games nobody heard of or nobody wanted to play. I wasn’t complaining though man I loved that little gray box. I loved it so much my parents bought me a small black and white TV and set it up next to my bed so I could sit and play at night before I fell a sleep. I thought once I discovered Nintendo there was no going back the world had changed and Atari was quickly fading into memory.

My love of Nintendo even stretched into other areas of my life. I begged mom to buy Mario valentines day cards for my friends, I had Mario on my folders and notebooks for school, I watched the cartoon/TV extravaganza the “Super Mario Super Show” faithfully, even more so than my previously beloved Transformers. If Mario was on one channel and even Ninja Turtles, which I enjoyed, was on the other, Mario one every time. I even watched that movie, I won’t say the name you remember, and I was, well I liked parts of it, seeing Mario and Luigi on the big screen in their costumes was, um sorta satisfying, but, okay it was a mess of a movie that almost killed Nintendo for me but I sat in the theater hoping to enjoy it nonetheless, I even convinced my parents to buy a copy on VHS because as a kid I believed if I kept watching it would eventually get better. Yeah I was wrong sue me.

Things were progressing along just fine until one day I questioned Nintendo’s value to me. A friend of mine showed me his new game consoles, the Turbo Grafix 16. He bragged how it was so much better than Nintendo because it was 16 bits and Nintendo was “only” 8 bits. I didn’t know what the hell a bit was but if this machine had more of them it must be better. So I started looking through comic books to read Turbo Grafix ads and saw, it had a few games that looked cool. I started putting the work on my parents to buy me a new 16 bit machine and they shot it down dead with, when Nintendo makes one we will consider it. I thought that will never happen Nintendo is stuck in the past their machine is too popular there is no chance they will ever replace it. Of course I was 8 at the time what did I know. To be fair Super Mario Bros. 3 had just came out and well that game, 16 bit or not 16 bit, was a damn fine game that reminded me bits, what are bits, this game is FUN and fun is the name of the game. So  my interest in Turbo whatsitcalled faded and I plunged head first into my world of Nintendo.

Then everything changed in 1992. I was at another friends house who was showing me his newest toy, the Super Nintendo! Wait a Nintendo that was SUPER and not “regular” I had to have one. This put me on a quest to once again convince my parents I needed a new Nintendo player. Dad wasn’t falling for it, he just got the Nintendo three or four years prior, if they can’t last ten years he felt they weren’t worth the money spent on them. And so I waited. Christmas 1993 came and still no Super Nintendo under the tree. By this time I had begun to amass quite a collection of NES carts so I wasn’t exactly in a huge hurry to you know upgrade. That is until one fateful day everything changed for good, this time there was no going back. Sitting on the bus another kid showed me his new toy, the Sega Game Gear. My best friend at the time had a Game Boy and I already had dozens of those Tiger things at home so I was vaguely familiar with the concept of a hand held gaming device, but the tiny screens I just wasn’t sold. He was playing a game called Super Star Wars. I had played this game on NES and felt the Game Gear version definitely played better. Then he plugged in his Sonic cart. WHAT IS THIS? A “Mario” game that was actually as good as or even *gasp* better than Mario? Oh man I fell in love so hard with Sonic I immediately began to lose all interest in that lame Plumber from the Mushroom Kingdom. (This was the SAME Mario my mom had used to convince me cleaning the toilet was fun because “Mario is a plumber and plumbers clean toilets” yeah I fell for it, Doh!)

With my friends posters and Sega promotional material I now knew I had to have this new machine, the Sega Genesis. I had forgotten all about Super Nintendo and abandoned my quest to get one now I turned all my attention to Genesis. It was an easy sell, my parents were Sunday school teachers, the word Genesis is in the Bible it must be good right?  It worked, a little nudging, some careful planting of evidence and on my 12th birthday my parents gave me a Sega Genesis console with Sonic the Hedgehog 2 packed in! Whoo hoo I was happy. Yeah sorry Nintendo, Sega had Sonic, Mortal Kombat WITH the blood, Turrican, Shinobi, Streets of Rage, the BETTER Mighty Morphin Power Rangers games (shut up I was 12,) and it had not one but TWO totally amazing X-Men games and boy was I an X-Men nut by this time. The 16 bit wars were easily the best time to be a gamer and I loved drawing battle lines and picking what I knew was the right side, Sega Genesis all the way baby, it had games, it had Sega CD, it could play music, it could play Karaoke CD’s (didn’t know what they were but hey it could play them so it was cool!) Man I jumped on the Sega bandwagon so hard, to this day my online discussion forum handle more often than not is Sega Gamer 12, a throwback to getting a Genesis on my 12th birthday. Good times were had for a very long time.

Just like the transition from Atari to Nintendo then Nintendo to Sega I felt there was always going to be a newcomer to take out the old timer. Atari failed to make a comeback with their Jaguar, and even before it was announced I knew Saturn would bomb because it was over priced 32X and 32X was a joke, even I could see that at only 12 years of age. So where was I to go now that Nintendo had lost my interest? Don’t count the lovable house that Mario built out just yet my friends. Nintendo and Sega were battling it out in the home console and handheld market, Sega was killing it in arcades and I was a huge arcade fan, something was brewing that made me rethink everything. Virtaul Reality. We stopped calling it VR pretty quickly and then just called it 3D gaming but between Doom, Area 51, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Racing, Tekken, Cruisin USA, Killer Instinct, Star Fox, this new “VR-3D” gaming craze was upon us and I had to get in. The question then was which of the new 3D consoles was I going to set my sights on? There were four on the market or just around the corner.

It was middle 1995, summer, I had a job now I could save up my money and buy my OWN machine. No need to involve the parents anymore. I was saving up for a new 3D gaming box but which one do I go after? The Sega Saturn, and it’s blocky, ugly games that were not at all fun like Genesis? Or would it be Atari and..  not not even on my radar was the Jaguar sorry pass. What about Sony and their new fangled Play Station majigger? Not sure how much faith I have in a company known for making tape decks so I turned my attention to the one last hope for gaming, Nintendo Ultra 64, which was just around the corner. I enjoyed Killer Instinct and Cruisin USA in the arcades, I played the heck out of Area 51, and I was even starting to feel some nostalgia for Mario after playing Super Mario All-Stars at a cousins house that summer. This had me thinking Nintendo was going to be my next purchase. I saved up, went down to K-Mart in August of 1996 and put my N64 machine and Super Mario 64 game cart on advance layaway. It was going to cost me a whole bunch of money but I felt it was worth it I wanted 3D Mario.

The day before I was supposed to pay it off/pick it up something changed. My dad had taken me into this pawn shop, which introduced me to a whole new world of shopping I had never experienced before, and they had a complete working Super NES for a mere $40 bucks! I was like wow wait a second drop $250 on an N64 and ONE game, or take home this machine, a shoe box full of great Super NES games, and have money left over to buy 3 pieces of a 5 piece drum set? I had to cancel my Layaway, take that money to the pawn shop and load up on Super NES games.

With a Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis safely tucked away on my TV in my bedroom I was set for life baby. I was quickly reminded how much I enjoyed Nintendo games. I never fell for the 16 bit wars, I finally had both machines and I could honestly say they both gave me equal enjoyment over the years. Eventually this would morph into a half truth then Super NES would not only win out for me as the better machine overall, I would eventually settle on it as the greatest video game console, of all time.

Things were going good I was firmly back in Nintendo land. I grabbed me an N64 a couple short years latter, got a Game Boy Pocket then Game Boy Advance along the way, followed that up with an amazing and to this day very memorable Game Cube machine, got me a Nintendo DS and enjoyed it tremendously then suddenly Nintendo did the unthinkable, they made a machine I not only wasn’t excited for much, I grew to HATE. Unlike Super NES where the alternative was just as good for the most part, or the N64 where you kind of had to recognize it was your second machine with Playstation being the bulk of your source of gaming, now Wii was an entirely different beast. I quickly went from not that interested to HATING that worthless pile of garbage. I hated it so much that it was 3 years into Wii U before I could even consider getting it and despite having the same name, I personally felt it was the superior machine, it was the last straw for me. I never picked up a 3DS, I sold my DS when it became nothing more than SNES 2.0 with a few N64 remakes and a bunch of the casual crap flooding the Wii library. I realized my love was not for Nintendo the company, or even Nintendo products, it was always the Nintendo games and the characters within those games. I gotta say with Wii and Wii U I lost a lot of respect for the company, I began to lose hope and now just a few months away from their next machine, the NX, I just don’t think I can muster the energy to go through all of that again. This could be my final good by to Nintendo once and for all. Wii hurt me, bad, and Wii U didn’t do much to mend those wounds, in fact it just rubbed salt in a few cases and was barely a band aid at best.

I am here to say that barring a really mind blowing game that I absolutely can’t live without, that does NOT rely on some controller gimmick, and isn’t outrageously over priced outdated hardware, I am just not likely to even bother with NX and Wii U might be my last Nintendo console I ever buy, and if I sell it to buy more Game Cube games, which I might do, it won’t even be a console I own forever. I love Nintendo, at one time I loved them a lot, but I feel like the time has come to file for divorce and go our separate ways. Sony surprised me over the years consistently making the games and consoles I just wished Nintendo would and I figured I am done wishing Nintendo would JUST make a Playstation/modern Super NES and say to hell with it I am firmly now a Playstation gamer.

There is a chance I might buy that new NES Classic Edition console they just announced yesterday. Can they win me back? Only time will tell but as of right now I spend all my time gaming on my PS4 anyways, and I am saving up for a Playstation VR so it’s a long shot. I might download that Pokemon Go app in the meantime though.