Classic Systems: Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
There are many systems that a "good" gamer should know, and at the top of the list (beyond whatever the current generation holds) is the Nintendo Entertainment System (or NES). The NES is easily the most popular of systems that are no longer supported; known by many names like "the old Nintendo" or "the first Nintendo" (both names which drive me crazy, as Nintendo is the name of the company and not the system itself) it is the platform that many gamers started out on.
Chances are, if you've played any video games before on an "old" system, the NES was it.
The system is gray, boxy, and loads like a toaster. No joke. You have to first open the little plastic flap and insert the cartridge into the port on the front of the machine, pushing it down to lock it into place before pushing the "on" button. The carts are very distinctive; square, gray (or one of the few golden carts), with a ridged area on the left side and the label on the right. If I had a picture, I know that a lot of you reading this who might not know off the top of your head what I'm talking about would respond with "Hey, I know that thing! I've seen that before!"
The NES started out in Japan as the FamiCom (short for Family Computer) back in 1983, when the Japanese video game market was in full swing. In the US, the market was doing just the opposite; Atari was losing millions, many game companies were closing shop, and no matter what was being released most American players experienced a lack of interest. (The legend is that the game E.T. for the Atari 2600 was responsible for "killing" the video game industry in the US due to its being so remarkably bad that no one wanted to play another game again. But remember, this is only a rumor; though certainly the game didn't help anything.)
Nintendo decided though, no matter the American market, to release their little console that could in the mid-1980s, and in doing so brought back the industry. Following it came the Sega Master System (precursor to the Sega Genesis) and the NEC TurboGrafx-16, starting the boom that the market has grown to today.
There are so many excellent games for the NES that it really pays to try out the system, the most beautiful thing being that most of the really great games for the system can be found for cheap. The original three Super Mario Brothers titles (all three of which have been re-released for handheld systems; the first SMB for the Game Boy Color, the other two for the Game Boy Advance and bundled with the original Super Mario Brothers for a double-pack) set the standard for the newer-age platform/side-scroller genre, Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy started the role-playing genre on televisions across the country, Tetris transferred from the handheld medium to bigger screens and became the game that all other puzzlers have to look up to... so many games, and I don't want to take up too much of your time.
This isn't the full story, of course; I don't have all of the facts, and I don't want to go on and on about every great game for the platform, so this is basically just an overview. There is plenty more information on this system in the Digital Press Classic Guide, as well as other books specializing in the history of gaming (Pheonix: The Rise And Fall of Video Games by Leonard Herman and The First Quarter by Steve Kent are two examples). For more on the history consult these resources, and hopefully I've gotten you off to a good start.
Chances are, if you've played any video games before on an "old" system, the NES was it.
The system is gray, boxy, and loads like a toaster. No joke. You have to first open the little plastic flap and insert the cartridge into the port on the front of the machine, pushing it down to lock it into place before pushing the "on" button. The carts are very distinctive; square, gray (or one of the few golden carts), with a ridged area on the left side and the label on the right. If I had a picture, I know that a lot of you reading this who might not know off the top of your head what I'm talking about would respond with "Hey, I know that thing! I've seen that before!"
The NES started out in Japan as the FamiCom (short for Family Computer) back in 1983, when the Japanese video game market was in full swing. In the US, the market was doing just the opposite; Atari was losing millions, many game companies were closing shop, and no matter what was being released most American players experienced a lack of interest. (The legend is that the game E.T. for the Atari 2600 was responsible for "killing" the video game industry in the US due to its being so remarkably bad that no one wanted to play another game again. But remember, this is only a rumor; though certainly the game didn't help anything.)
Nintendo decided though, no matter the American market, to release their little console that could in the mid-1980s, and in doing so brought back the industry. Following it came the Sega Master System (precursor to the Sega Genesis) and the NEC TurboGrafx-16, starting the boom that the market has grown to today.
There are so many excellent games for the NES that it really pays to try out the system, the most beautiful thing being that most of the really great games for the system can be found for cheap. The original three Super Mario Brothers titles (all three of which have been re-released for handheld systems; the first SMB for the Game Boy Color, the other two for the Game Boy Advance and bundled with the original Super Mario Brothers for a double-pack) set the standard for the newer-age platform/side-scroller genre, Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy started the role-playing genre on televisions across the country, Tetris transferred from the handheld medium to bigger screens and became the game that all other puzzlers have to look up to... so many games, and I don't want to take up too much of your time.
This isn't the full story, of course; I don't have all of the facts, and I don't want to go on and on about every great game for the platform, so this is basically just an overview. There is plenty more information on this system in the Digital Press Classic Guide, as well as other books specializing in the history of gaming (Pheonix: The Rise And Fall of Video Games by Leonard Herman and The First Quarter by Steve Kent are two examples). For more on the history consult these resources, and hopefully I've gotten you off to a good start.
posted by Unknown at 8:11 PM
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