Who doesn't remember the
feeling they had when they opened up their games to play for the
first time? It's an incredible feeling isn't it? One mixed with
excitement and anticipation, soon followed by frustration and agony
as the game got harder, and harder, and harder until we threw the
controller across the room! Or maybe that's just me. While we can all
remember what these first times are like, how many here can remember
the very first time they ever played a game? Some of you can
probably only go back so far, and others might be able to remember
what they had for breakfast that morning. Everyone's memory is
different as well as their experiences and here today I'm going to
share one with you all: a child's introduction to gaming.
Back when
controllers only had two buttons. The good ol' days.
The year
was 1993. The console? The Nintendo Entertainment System. How do I
remember? I have no idea. The first thing I remember is an old dream
I had about my family and then waking up to look out the living
room's window (I didn't have my own room so I had to sleep in the
living room) and I was four years old at the time. Anything before
that is a blur. I don't know how long my brother had the system, but
given that he's eleven years older than me he had a lot of time to
get his hands on one. I can only assume his box looked like the one
up above because I remember him having that same exact zapper.
Assuming
you're old enough to remember these games, let me know if anything
sounds familiar: Karate Champ, JAWS, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The
Uncanny X-Men, Dr. Mario, Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles II, Paper
Boy, Ninja Gaiden, these were the games I grew up with as a kid. If
you're familiar with the Angry Video Game Nerd at all a part of you
is probably pitying me right now, but fear not. I managed to enjoy
them through ignorance and being a little kid who was easy to
please. However, before I got around to playing these I was able to
play one of the best games ever made. Super Mario Brothers!
Admit it,
you're hearing the Mario theme right now, aren't you?
Now, while
I can remember the order I played these games in, I don't remember
much at all about my first experience. Give me a break, I was only
four. I would play this game again years later on the same NES since
my brother would sell the console to our cousin and I would spend
time on it over there, so it was like a reunion. I wouldn't learn
about any of the secret blocks until years later when my dad showed
me where I could find them. Yeah, my dad knew about the secret
blocks and passages from Mario. He's cool.
I do
remember the first level pretty well. Who doesn't? I always liked to
take my time and hit every block I could, meanwhile being oblivious
of the timer until the music changed. Even took me a while to get
the jumping down. The jumping in that game could be pretty precise. I
started out with small jumps and killed Goombas one at a time. A lot
of gamers make this thing look easy on various playthroughs you may
have watched on YouTube, but nobody started out that good. There
really is a learning curve to the game which get worse the younger
you are while playing it. Remember when you didn't know you could
run over the small gaps on the ground and tried jumping over them?
All that frustration just to learn all you had to do was run over
them? My brother didn't have a strategy guide, and there were no
walkthroughs you could look up online back then, so a lot of these
secrets were discovered by complete accidents. Aren't they all the
more satisfying knowing you found them on your own without help?
For the few
people in the world who don't know, Mario is a game about two
brothers (Mario and Luigi) who are transported to the magical world
known as the Mushroom Kingdom tasked with the objective of rescuing
Princess Peach from Bowser. A formula that has stood the test of
time even today. How were they sent there? Why are they rescuing the
princess? Who's Bowser? We didn't know and we didn't care. Story and
characters were still an afterthought back then. By 93 there were a
couple of games that had more focus on story, but there were still
far more attention on the gameplay. There had to be. We didn't have
the technology back then to tell stories the way we can now so the
gameplay had to be top notch, and while it doesn't look it, at the
time the graphics were revolutionary. If you had nothing but Atari
2600 games prior Mario is going to look like the next big step in
gaming. That's not a knock to Atari games it's just the truth.
Mario was
bright and colorful, the music was catchy, the stages were fun,
creative, and challenging. The game brought an entire industry up
from the depths of despair and set the pace for every side-scrolling
platformer that came out afterwords. The game was eight years old by
the time I first played it and it was every bit as good when it
first came out. Here we are twenty- two years later and people are
still playing it, whether it be people who grew up with it or
younger gamers playing through it for the very first time. If that's
not a testament to its legacy then I don't know what is. As far as
introductions go, I couldn't have asked for a better gateway into
the exciting world of gaming.
Look at that
dog just snickering in the corner. What an asshole!
Duck Hunt
was a pretty straightforward game. All you have to do is kill
innocent ducks who are just minding their own business. Jeez, when
put like that I almost feel like a dick. This game had to be played
with the Nintendo Zapper, an electric light gun accessory
created for the NES. Yeah, we actually shipped toy guns with our
games. Can you imagine if anyone tried to do that now? Children
can't even draw a gun in class or make a gun shape with their hands.
They try to do this now the shipper would be flogged! You can't do
that shit in America anymore, but I digress.
All you had to do was
aim the Zapper at the screen and fire. Easy right? Wrong! Some people
think the only things to gun is to aim and shoot. Well, that might
be the case here, but it's not as easy as it looks! You have to aim
at the screen and wait for the duck to appear. Naturally, the duck
isn't just going to stand there and let you shoot it, you need to
track its movement and fire before the duck disappears. You only
have three shots before you have to reload. Every time you miss a
shot the dog comes out of the bushes and laughs at you. Every.
Single. Time.
You know what? I think I
can contribute this game to my earlier hatred of the First Person
Shooter genre. I used to hate every FPS game I encountered with the
exception of Doom before I finally began to give the genre more of a
chance with games like Metroid Prime and F.E.A.R. Yet ironically, I
enjoyed Area 51 a lot and that game required a light gun like Duck
Hunt. I don't know, I'm weird. Bottom line is Duck Hunt was the
first game to infuriate a lot of people and dare I say it hasn't
aged as well as Super Mario Brothers? All you do is shoot ducks, and
get so good at shooting those ducks just to spite the damn dog. Not
a good game to play if you have a temper.
What was the
first game you remember playing? Were you like me and started off
with Mario and Duck Hunt or did you have a different introduction
altogether? Let me know in the comments below.
For more Mario check out these links:
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