Gamer Nostalgia

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Select, Start

The location of the first magic flute in Super Mario Brothers 3

The infinite 1-Up trick in Super Mario Brothers

Super Mario Brothers 3

I recently purchased SMB3, Zelda, and Super Mario 64 for my Wii and spent a delightful afternoon with my girlfriend remembering all the hidden corners of the games. We might as well have been recalling pop refrences from our childhoods, except I'm 9 years older than her so any references to grunge, early hip-hop, or flannel shirts would have been utterly lost on her.

However, mention the many hours I spent trying to find my way out of dungeons in Zelda and the generational gap vanished. We could both hum the tune to the water world level in Super Mario Brothers, or recall the joy of the P power up that let us fly unencumbered, or how you'd rush your friends at school to ask about any new tricks or hidden stars. She is probably in the last generation of people who played console games without the all mighty GOOGLE.

She was lucky. Growing up in a relatively rural area of Mexico City meant internet, while available, was dial-up, so she got to have a real taste of what it meant to play these games without the benefit of looking up hints, cheats, or walkthroughs.

So, is this just one long rant on how "kids these days with their internets..."?

No. This is an ode to old Nintendo games. games that squeezed every last drop of fun and graphics from their respective systems. Games that aged well. That still prove every bit as fun 15 years later when held side by side with todays High Def, motion sensing controllers, open ended, choice laden games that often pack better scripts that most hollywood movies. Games that responded to the limitations of the console by innovating within those limitations. Games that sidestep generational gaps.

For anyone with a Wii, or those who care to wade into the legally murky waters of downloading the ROMS and any of the many wonderful NES emulators that run on anything from a PC to an iPhone, here are a few of my top picks for the NES, SuperNes, and N64.

Super Mario Brothers 3

First and foremost, Super Mario Brothers 3: This game is absolutely gorgeous and, despite it being an 8 bit game, it still looks great on my 42" plasma. It also has some of the most engaging game-play of any side scrolling platform game. The sheer number of power-ups is amazing: racoon tail, frog suit, the flying P, and my personal favorite, the Kuribo shoe. There's also certain amount of choice in which way you choose to play a world: Do you finish every level or shortcut it to the castle?

Contra: Simple, straight forward, wicked fun. I'd call it a shoot-em up. There's a wonderful variety of power-ups for your gun, and if you run into trouble you can always use the code at the beginning of this article.

Super Mario 64: This game is massive. When I played it again, I was astonished at just how massive it is. Each level can be played as many times as you like, you can spend 20 mins just faffing about, not doing any of the "missions" to collect stars. It's incredibly open ended and has so many hidden zones that it's almost beyond me how any one who didn't use google to find them, could finish the game. Super Mario Galaxy may be getting all the buzz right now, but it's older sibling still has a lot to offer.

Super Mario World: Ok so another Mario game? YES, can I help it if Takashi Tezuka and Shigeru Miyamoto are geniuses? The game is a beautiful evolution of the gameplay concepts established in SMB3, but they take full advantage of those extra 8 bits the SNES provided. The visuals are beautiful, Mario takes on a slightly pudgier texture and though it lost some of the quirkier power-ups from SMB3, it's the only game that featured Yoshi that I didn't dislike. Maybe it's just me, but the idea of Yoshi as the protagnoist of his own game rubbed me the wrong way. Can anyone image if Chris Nolan had directed "Robin Begins"?

Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: My all time favorite Zelda game, period. It consumed me when I was 14 and first played it all the way through, and I fear it's consuming me all over again, since I bought it for my Wii. "Damn you Miyamoto!" The game, like many of the ones mentioned above, is huge. You play in a very large world that has it's mirror version, the dark world and such wonderful secrets as the Chris Houlihan room*.

Gamers have a tendency to jump exclusively on the newer and better bandwagon as soon as it pulls into town, but that makes as much sense as stating that you only watch new releases and never watch a movie made in the 80's (something a friend once said to me).

And for those that go the emulator route, here's a wonderful link to a store that sells usb adaptors for old NES and SNES controllers: RetroUSB. There's nothing quite like playing the games on your PC or Mac with an original controller.