- Medium
- Hardware
- Type
- Game Console
- Sub Type
- Version Date
- 1985
- Item Date
- 1985
- Related Links
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Entertainment_System
- Notes
The NES is an iconic system that consisted of vast advancements, impressive video games and the industry’s most lucrative franchises. Its importance to video games is arguably unparalleled having saved the US industry from collapsing following Atari’s infamous crash in the early eighties. The NES propelled video games to new heights when it came to game design, save functions, story involvement, and character control. With the NES came the modern model for third party developers on video game consoles and licensing of video games. – Nintendo.Wikia
The NES was fun to play and I really enjoyed it. Growing up in the 1990’s, I never played an NES, only the consoles that came after it. I am glad I was able to play it, but I will admit that I had my difficulties playing it. Games were hard to get into the consoles and even more difficult to remove from the console and even when a cartridge was inserted, sometimes the game would not start. In two instances, the NES started but the graphics were so glitchy that it hindered my experience playing the game. However, once the game ran properly I had a fun time. Everyone should play on the NES while the exhibit is still up and running, just do not expect it to run at its finest each time you turn it on but the game experience makes up for the difficulties.
I remember playing this when I was growing up due to having a much older brother. The system is just as I remember it; simple, yet fun. The cartridges for this, thankfully, didn’t need to be blown on to get to work which was something I do remember both fondly and with anger. The system was fun to play even with the slower reaction times and more sensitivity it has compared to newer consoles.
Oh man, the NES. I have a long history with this system. While I mostly grew up on the GameCube and N64, the NES was something special in my childhood. My aunt and uncle owned one, and it was with theirs that I learned to feel the humility of defeat by my older cousins and their superior gaming skills.
But let’s be real here, when you’re a 10 year old boy and you challenge a 5 year old girl to a videogame, winning that isn’t really a challenge.
My best friend in elementary school basically lived in 1985, so we played NES constantly. Coming back to it 10 years later, I realize why we did. The controls are basic; there’s no room for fancy combos that you can only achieve by being an expert at a game. Anyone can pick this up and be just as good as their partner. The graphics, while glitchy, gave me so much nostalgia that for a while, I felt like that 11 year old girl sitting in her friend’s basement, getting my butt kicked at Mario.
I would argue that this console is just as fun as my Xbox One, and not only for the nostalgic purposes it provided.
I loved playing with the NES in the Console Living Room because it gave me a great sense of nostalgia. We had a system back in the day, but then my mom sold it at a yard sale, leaving us with a bunch of games and no console. Recently I went to a store in Downtown Fredericksburg that sold vintage games and systems, and purchased another NES. I was able to play games that I hadn’t played in years! The NES in the Console Living Room is the same thing. It brought back all of my fondest memories of large game cartridges, and zero wifi capability. The only issue is that it is hard to get the console up and running due to the fact that a bunch of different things are plugged in at once, and it took awhile to get all of the settings right.
I’m still mildly ashamed that I’d never actually played an NES before coming to the CLR but I quickly turned that shame into a fun experience. I grew up playing Nintendo consoles more than anything, owning a Game Boy Color, N64, GameCube, GameBoy Advance, & SP, and the DS and its successors. That said, I had actually played NES emulators online and found them to be fun in their own right. But even then, it’s a completely different experience once you’re actually able to put your hands on a console and play a game in its fully original state. The NES feels just as fun to me as any other Nintendo console or handheld I’ve ever had and having it in the CLR is beyond awesome.
I wasn’t into video games when I was little and was too young to know about the NES. The controls were much more simple and easy to maneuver than I expected them to be, but the games were much more difficult than I expected as well. One of the games I played on the system was Sky Sharks (which I couldn’t find in the inventory). I didn’t really see how many lives I had at times so I was pretty annoyed when I came across the continued screen. I also didn’t know that you had to press start to continue rather than the A or B button. Other than a few glitches (which I can’t tell if it was the game or the TV), it was nice to be able to play the NES.
Playing Super Mario on the NES was so much fun. It was nostalgic. I use to play it with the other children in daycare. When the game would go grey than have color was also very strange to me because that’s not something you experience with games now. It blows my mind that hitting that TV can do something as simple and get some of the color back. The game felt more difficult than I remembered and it made me think about how game are tailored these days to the difficulty the player wants. While during the time of the NES that didn’t really exist, what you see is what you get. Holding the controller felt a little strange because it doesn’t fit to the contour of your hands like controllers do now. The rectangle controller almost seemed to work against my hand. Maybe when I was younger my hands were smaller so the edges didn’t bother me as much.
This baby brought back memories. The first thing I thought when I saw this console was “KONAMI CODE!” I know that’s silly and nerdy but hey, that’s who I am. I chose to play Duck Hunt for some odd reason and I still experienced the same frustration I did when I played it a few times before. Of course, it has been so long since I’ve placed an NES and I had to be an old man and stare at the controller for a year before I decided what to do. But I still had fun and that’s really what only matters.