Number 11 [Most Memorable NES Games]

11.  Battletoads

Battletoads!  Yeah, Battletoads!  Everybody remembers the Battletoads, right?  You know, they were the reptilian ninja mutants in their teenage years named for famous Renaissance painters.  There was Leonardo, and Michelangelo, and... Oh wait.  I'm thinking of something else.  The Battletoads were- well I'm not sure what they were.  But it was pretty clear what they were trying to be.

This was THE game to have in the summer of 1991.  My brother and I saved up for so long to get this one too.  Scrounging panhandlers would've been an apt description for us as the school year drew to a close that sultry May.  

My wonderful mom finally had pity on us and helped us buy it.  She was always so supportive of my hobbies.  Two years later she fueled my comic book phase by passing me a few bucks every week for the latest copy of Detective Comics or The Uncanny X-Men.  Four years after that she helped me buy my first guitar.  I'll always be grateful.  A supportive mom is a special blessing in life.

It felt amazing to be one of the lucky few who actually owned this game.  Kids at school were jealous.  I kind of liked it.  Okay, I really liked it.  It was one of the only times in my younger years I ever felt popular.

This was a top-notch game by NES standards.  It's just insanely difficult.  This game was responsible for much controller biting.  I even blame it for my premature hair loss.  I enjoyed it, but simply got sick of playing the first two levels for, well, forever basically.  I still can't get past level three.

What was with the crazy difficulty of games back then?  Why did they have to make things so hard?  What is it with me and level three on Nintendo games?  I need to watch some Ninja Turtles and go calm down a bit.

Come back tomorrow for my next game.  And be sure to check out all the posts in my Most Memorable NES Games list.

[Screenshots courtesy of GameFAQs]

Number 12 [Most Memorable NES Games]

So I decided to do a Top 12 list.  I just couldn't do ten.  I tried.  I really tried.  Even with the honorable mentions.  But this is my blog, so I'll do as I please.  Besides, Top 10 lists are boring.  Top 12 lists are where it's at. 

12.  Batman

In case you forgot it was a video game, it even reminds you on the box.  Batman- The Video Game.  YEEEAAH!!

My brother and I actually created a savings account for this game.  We got an old, beat-up cracker tin and wrapped a sheet of paper from a spiral notebook around it.  We made sure the the frayed edges were down at the bottom and the Scotch tape was in the back.  We needed it to look classy.  I scrawled Justin and Joby's Video Game Fund on the front.  Joby drew the Bat-Symbol in the center.  It was hideous, but it represented a dream.

Anytime time we got spare change, it would go straight into the fund.  Every couple of days we would count it up and write the new running total on the back.  This was back when a new NES cart would run you $49.99.  Good night that's a lot when you're nine and seven-years-old.  Jeez, that's a lot when you're 31...

After what felt like six months, I think we got up to around $27 or so.  Needless to say, I didn't actually own this game until late in my teen years.

I first saw this game in action at my buddy, Mike Willis', house.  I've been a Batman fan since I was a little kid, and this game pushed my nine-year-old brain over the edge.  It was amazing.  The graphics and sound were beyond anything I can remember seeing up until that point.  I still jam to this soundtrack when I'm working on certain things.

The punishing difficulty level kept me from ever getting too far as a kid.  Our old neighbor, Damon, could beat the Joker.  He was a gaming legend around my old apartments.  We'd always say stuff like, "I bet Damon could get past this part with one hand" or "I heard Damon already beat this without looking at the screen."  We built him up to a Chuck Norris-esqe gaming prowess.  But don't tell Chuck Norris I said that.

Even now I can't get past level three.  But who cares?  It was Batman.  And it was is awesome.

Come back tomorrow for my next game.  And be sure to check out all the posts in my Most Memorable NES Games list.

[Screenshots courtesy of GameFAQs]

Honorable Mentions [Most Memorable NES Games]

These are five games that I remember fondly, but just didn't make the cut for my Most Memorable NES Games list.  They are not in any particular order.  Be sure to check back tomorrow for the beginning of the my Most Memorable NES Games list!

Maniac Mansion

I close my eyes and think back to this game, and just feel joy.  I remember laughing so hard at parts.  This game captured my imagination through its amazing narrative like few games had.  Any game that lets you microwave a hamster is going to sit pretty well with me.

I played this when I was younger with my friend Adam.  We got pretty far, but I don't remember getting the best ending.  When I was in middle school, my brother, Joby, and I took a two mile trek down to J & J Pawn one afternoon.  We found this gem for $4 or something.  I played it a bunch again and finally got the best ending.

Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers

This was a 2 player co-op dream.  Disney and Capcom in the early '90s were gold.  Solid gold.  It was easy, but so fun.  My brother and I played this one to death.  I think my sister may have even gotten in on this action.

We played this one a bunch out on my dad's farm.  On another one of those gargantuan console televisions with the round clicky dials.  We'd make cheese sandwiches and totally put up with our dad yelling at us to go outside.  So worth it.

Metroid

I never appreciated this game until I got a little older.  The atmosphere and ambiance is crazy good considering it's an 8-bit title from 1986.  This was a very early rental for me.  I remember playing this on our old 9 in. black-and-white TV that my mom let my brother and me have in our room.  I was totally lost.  I had no idea what to do or where to go.  Al Gore hadn't invented the internet yet, so I was stuck.

I came back to it a few years later with some help from my friend, Laramie.  We got through maybe half of it.  I finally finished this one while in middle school with some help from Nintendo Power and a few very late nights.

Mike Tyson's Punch Out!!

I never owned this one, but it was a frequent rental.  My first memories of this game were on a PlayChoice 10 arcade cabinet at Big Cheese Pizza.  There's just something about greasy pizza and video games.  I'd race through my salad, which consisted mostly of cottage cheese and sunflower seeds, to go play a quick game before our pizza came.

It's a magically addictive game that even holds up today.  I still play it every once and while.  I bought a used copy in my teen years, although it was just called Punch Out!!.  Super Macho Man is as far as I've ever gotten.  But who could forget 007-373-5963 to go straight to Tyson, even if I can only get in one punch?

Back to the Future

This is one of the most reviled of all NES games.  And for good reason.  It is electronic vomit in a cartridge format.  The only reason it gets a nod is because it was the first game my brother and I owned beside Super Mario Bros. /Duck Hunt.

We got this for Christmas the same year we got our NES.  I was so pumped to play this.  The movie was awesome, the game had to be too, right?  Let's play this thing!  Yeah...  After playing for about seven minutes, I'd had enough.  To this day, I still cannot get past the milkshake challenge at the end of level one.  Jeez.

What Video Games Mean to Me

I've been thinking about video games quite a bit lately.  No, not the Modern Warfare 3 that my students won't quit talking about.  I don't even care about most modern stuff.  I'm talking about video games from back in the day.  My day.

I've been interested in video games for almost as long as I can remember.  I have vague memories of playing on an old, wood-paneled pong console at my grandma's house when I was very small.  My cousins had an Atari 2600 that melted my brain at the time.  The first console I remember getting was an Atari 7800.  Pole Position II, anyone?  Good, because that's the only game we had.

Where the Love Began
But the machine that captured my heart was the Nintendo Entertainment System.  It would go on to be affectionately called the "regular Nintendo" by my brother and me.  I can still feel the adrenaline pumping through my eight-year-old body when my mom said we could rent one.  That's right.  Rent one.

It was one of the most exciting moments of my young life when we came home with that bad boy.  We got to rent several games with it too.  I distinctly remember R.C. Pro-Am and Life Force, for sure.  We finally got that baby hooked up to our old wood-grain console TV.  That's right.  A console TV.  I had played Nintendo at friends' houses, but this was different.  I controlled the games and the pace.  And my brother was the only person I had to take turns with.  Sort of.  I was hooked.

My brother and I finally got our own NES a year later as a combined Christmas present.  Ripping through that cheap, festive wrapping paper on that early December morning made me feel like, well, a kid at Christmas time.  Who would have thought a small gray box would have brought me such untold hours of joy, frustration, and imagination.

But Why Video Games?
Why am I still thinking about this more than 20 years later?  I haven't quite put my finger on it.  There was just something comforting about playing a video game when I was kid.  Video games don't judge you.  A game doesn't care if you're on food stamps or have jeans that are too small.  They don't mind your low-rent apartment.  Video games don't make fun of you if you're not good at sports, or have a lazy eye.

So many kids seemed to care about those things.  But I knew my games wouldn't.  My family moved around quite a bit when I was younger.  Changing schools and towns was tough sometimes.  Things could be so uncertain and unpredictable.  But, as cheesy as this sounds, I always knew Mario, Link, and Mega Man would still be there, and still be the same.

My own children haven't gotten into gaming like I did when I was their age.  Maybe that's for the best.  Maybe it will happen when they're older.  Maybe it will never happen.  I'm not sure.

Back to Ten-Year-Old Me
But games are on my mind right now.  So, over the next few days, I'd like to share the most memorable Nintendo games from way back when.  My way back when.  This is not going to be a TOP 10 BEST NINTENDO GAMES EVER! kind of list.  These will be the most personal and memorable games for me when I was growing up.

There will be a few honorable mentions and then I'll post one game a day until I've reached the top.  Thanks for hanging out with me as I take a trip back to visit ten-year-old me.  So go grab a SqueezeIt and turn up the Vanilla Ice.  It'll be fun.

Photo credit: kenfagerdotcom

My Sweet Little Girl

My little girl turns five today.  And that's messing me up a little.  I do not know where the time has gone.  I know every parent says that.  I know every parent means it too.  But, I mean... wow.  I don't just mean it.  I feel it.

I'm pretty good with her up until about three.  Then, somehow, these last two years happened.  They happened with a velocity that will leave blur marks on the timeline of my life.  It makes me uncomfortable when I make myself think about it.

She is the third of my four children.  Even that sounds scary sometimes.  She's my only girl, so there will always be an innate specialness that comes with that.

She (back before I knew she was a she) was the first and only child whose gender I had prayed about.  The day my wife told me she was pregnant again I began praying for a girl.  I'm not entirely sure why.  I knew I had always wanted sons and daughters.  I guess part of me knew that this one was going to be a little girl.

I wrote about it in my journal back when I used to keep one.  It's been one of the few things in life that I just kind of knew.  God answered my prayers one morning as I was writing.  That confirmation was so assuring.  I didn't tell anyone though.  I was too scared to really write it.  It was just between me and God.

When we went for the check-up to find out the gender, I already knew what the report would be.  The thing is, I can't tell you how reassuring it was to hear it out loud from another person.

I remember the tingly feeling in my palms as I watched the ultrasound tech preparing the machine.  My anticipation grew as she put the blue ultrasound gel on Nell's body.  I could hardly stand it, when she finally asked us if we wanted to find out what we were having.  I'm not sure if I was more joyful about "officially" knowing I was having a daughter, or seeing one more example of God's faithfulness in my life.

Happy birthday, Selah!  I waited so patiently and faithfully for you.  I'm thankful you're such a sweet little girl.  My sweet little girl.