When I was 10 or 11, what I wanted more than anything in the world was a Nintendo. Quite a few of my friends has video game systems, and while it wasn’t a regular topic of discussion, everybody would bring up different games and how they had beaten such and such levels. These games sounded cool. The TV commercials made them look cool (all except Fester’s Quest, whose commercial creeped me out every time I saw it).
After much begging, my mother finally agreed that if I behaved myself for a certain amount of time, I might get a Nintendo system for my birthday. I was ecstatic- I just had to be good and not complain. Now, while I can not remember for sure what kind of kid I was back then, I have heard stories and seen pictures to recall that I was a rather bratty kid. It must certainly been difficult for me not to act up long enough to be eligible for my birthday present.
After a calendar full of stars for good behavior (or most likely part of a calendar plus suspiciously added stars that nobody knew where they came from), I received an original Nintendo Entertainment System. Now this was not the newest system in the stores at the time. Most of my friends had Segas or Super Nintendos. According to my parents, our television was too old to support such a newer system so I got this. Even though we had a large, aging built-in cabinet Magnavox TV that we would probably still have had lightning not hit in when I was in Junior High, I question this reasoning in my mind still to this day.
I don’t think my video game experience would have been the same had I gotten a newer system however. After cleaning the living room and making room to set my new game up (a mandatory chore if I ever wanted to see my present again), my dad set it up and we pulled out my new games: Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt(I wouldn’t get to play Duck Hunt until a years later when my cousins were forbidden from using the gun and it was passed on to me), Tetris, and Maniac Mansion.
I thought back to these games recently while I was playing Super Mario: The Lost Levels, an import Mario game that had been release for the original Nintendo overseas (it was later released here in the US for the Super Nintendo as part of a Super Mario 4-pack game cartridge). I have recently learned that one of the joys of the Wii is Nintendo’s online shop for downloading old systems’ games for the new Wii system. While it doesn’t have all the games that had been released, and some games require players to buy a “classic controller” (yet another was to tear money from our cold, dead wallets), it is a great way to revisit times like these, sitting in the living room, trying to make Mario jump over a steep cliff of flat, square bricks, or discussing with the green tentacle how everybody hates him and how disco sucks.
I’ve recently been told that my sister and I may have been the only people who played Maniac Mansion as children during the 90s— despite the few friends I remember discussing the game with in the past. As one of my sister’s friends told her, judging by its wikipedia page, it’s lame and was just a game out parents’ gave up because they didn’t want us playing violent ones. In all honesty, while it wasn’t violent, it also wasn’t lame. A puzzle-strategy game about a bunch of teenagers— a nerd, a grunge preppy (yeah, I still don’t understand how Dave even existed as a character), a (somewhat slutty-however you can get in 8-bit) goth, a surfer dude, and Syd- a character I barely remember but is on the cover art. There was also Sandy, Dave’s girlfriend, who the characters are breaking into Dr Fred’s mansion to save. I somewhat recall when we finally find Sandy, she’s in nothing but her underwear. Actually, as I describe these characters, I wonder whether I ever actually finished the game as a kid, because I can’t imagine anybody walking in the room at any of these points and not questioning it. Especially at the end, which as I finally finished it as an adult, I learned was a sad attempt at recreating the final scene in Rocky Horror Picture Show without the transsexuals. So yes, while Maniac Mansion was in no way as violent as most other games on the market at the time, it wasn’t a normal, blah game.
If I had started with games like Super Mario World or Sonic the Hedgehog, I don’t think I would have appreciated the complex plot-driven stories these kinds of 8-bit games provided, because I would have been too awestruck by the awesome graphics. As I say these words now about Sonic the Hedgehog, a game I just played only a few days ago, I wonder what it was like to think that those were so great.
I think of these again as I get frustrated playing the new Ghostbusters game for the Wii, fighting for 15 minutes with twisting a battery cell in the right direction to fit into a generator, wondering why the game couldn’t be 2-dimensional so I could simply just push it into place with very little movement.
I’m sure in the future, when all we have are chips implanted in our brain, allowing us to imagine ourselves in the game, we’ll wonder how people even used controllers.
ADDITON: After I wrote this I learned from my research that there was a Maniac Mansion TV show that ran for 3 years. Judging from the intros, it was VERY loosely based on the game.
Also, since that time I have played Fester's Quest. I don't believe I've ever finished the game, but it was fun lighting my way with bulbs in his mouth.
After much begging, my mother finally agreed that if I behaved myself for a certain amount of time, I might get a Nintendo system for my birthday. I was ecstatic- I just had to be good and not complain. Now, while I can not remember for sure what kind of kid I was back then, I have heard stories and seen pictures to recall that I was a rather bratty kid. It must certainly been difficult for me not to act up long enough to be eligible for my birthday present.
After a calendar full of stars for good behavior (or most likely part of a calendar plus suspiciously added stars that nobody knew where they came from), I received an original Nintendo Entertainment System. Now this was not the newest system in the stores at the time. Most of my friends had Segas or Super Nintendos. According to my parents, our television was too old to support such a newer system so I got this. Even though we had a large, aging built-in cabinet Magnavox TV that we would probably still have had lightning not hit in when I was in Junior High, I question this reasoning in my mind still to this day.
I don’t think my video game experience would have been the same had I gotten a newer system however. After cleaning the living room and making room to set my new game up (a mandatory chore if I ever wanted to see my present again), my dad set it up and we pulled out my new games: Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt(I wouldn’t get to play Duck Hunt until a years later when my cousins were forbidden from using the gun and it was passed on to me), Tetris, and Maniac Mansion.
I thought back to these games recently while I was playing Super Mario: The Lost Levels, an import Mario game that had been release for the original Nintendo overseas (it was later released here in the US for the Super Nintendo as part of a Super Mario 4-pack game cartridge). I have recently learned that one of the joys of the Wii is Nintendo’s online shop for downloading old systems’ games for the new Wii system. While it doesn’t have all the games that had been released, and some games require players to buy a “classic controller” (yet another was to tear money from our cold, dead wallets), it is a great way to revisit times like these, sitting in the living room, trying to make Mario jump over a steep cliff of flat, square bricks, or discussing with the green tentacle how everybody hates him and how disco sucks.
I’ve recently been told that my sister and I may have been the only people who played Maniac Mansion as children during the 90s— despite the few friends I remember discussing the game with in the past. As one of my sister’s friends told her, judging by its wikipedia page, it’s lame and was just a game out parents’ gave up because they didn’t want us playing violent ones. In all honesty, while it wasn’t violent, it also wasn’t lame. A puzzle-strategy game about a bunch of teenagers— a nerd, a grunge preppy (yeah, I still don’t understand how Dave even existed as a character), a (somewhat slutty-however you can get in 8-bit) goth, a surfer dude, and Syd- a character I barely remember but is on the cover art. There was also Sandy, Dave’s girlfriend, who the characters are breaking into Dr Fred’s mansion to save. I somewhat recall when we finally find Sandy, she’s in nothing but her underwear. Actually, as I describe these characters, I wonder whether I ever actually finished the game as a kid, because I can’t imagine anybody walking in the room at any of these points and not questioning it. Especially at the end, which as I finally finished it as an adult, I learned was a sad attempt at recreating the final scene in Rocky Horror Picture Show without the transsexuals. So yes, while Maniac Mansion was in no way as violent as most other games on the market at the time, it wasn’t a normal, blah game.
If I had started with games like Super Mario World or Sonic the Hedgehog, I don’t think I would have appreciated the complex plot-driven stories these kinds of 8-bit games provided, because I would have been too awestruck by the awesome graphics. As I say these words now about Sonic the Hedgehog, a game I just played only a few days ago, I wonder what it was like to think that those were so great.
I think of these again as I get frustrated playing the new Ghostbusters game for the Wii, fighting for 15 minutes with twisting a battery cell in the right direction to fit into a generator, wondering why the game couldn’t be 2-dimensional so I could simply just push it into place with very little movement.
I’m sure in the future, when all we have are chips implanted in our brain, allowing us to imagine ourselves in the game, we’ll wonder how people even used controllers.
ADDITON: After I wrote this I learned from my research that there was a Maniac Mansion TV show that ran for 3 years. Judging from the intros, it was VERY loosely based on the game.
Also, since that time I have played Fester's Quest. I don't believe I've ever finished the game, but it was fun lighting my way with bulbs in his mouth.
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