This week, I started packing some stuff up this week in preparation for me and the wife getting our own house. I had a lot of time to spend in front of ye olde bewbe toobe on Friday because of me and my wife's differing work schedules and thought that I would root around the cluttered room we use for storage for some sort of retro gaming experience.

When you come over to our apartment, you'd notice very quickly (if you're a gamer) that I still have my NES and my SNES attached to my 55" HDTV in the living room. You see, I am one of THOSE type of gamers that holds onto every single game that comes into their possession, including the copy of Bubsy for the SNES that I paid $80 for back when it came out. I still play my 'retro' systems just about every week and enjoy every minute of it.

Anyways, back to rooting around in the cluttered storage room.



I have most of my equipment/games in one corner of the room; the rest of the room is being utilized by my beautiful wife Mrs. Excremento. My most recent acquisition was from my friend who gave me his entire collection of NES gear including 20+ games I didn't own, the rest of the stuff got shipped to Mr. Adejuyigbe (aka Electro Lemon) so no I don't have anything else to share.

In his game collection were a few games that I adored playing when I was younger. I decided to crate his whole collection into the living room to spend some quality time with the awesomeness that is the NES.

Many of our younger gaming brethren are used to putting a game in the system and having it work the first time you switch on the power. Any of us from the NES generation know that to get games going and playing correctly on Nintendo's first American console, you need to have a bit of finesse. Whatever the trick may be: blowing, half inserting, slamming, or wedging, it is truly akin to sex how practiced the skill it is.



I started my retro gaming experience with Duck Tales, which is from the golden age where Capcom did great things with show licenses. The story involves the two main things that Scrooge McDuck was known for in the cartoon series: makin' himself richer, and getting into all sorts of trouble. The moment that the music started playing on the title screen, I found myself humming along to all the wonderful chip tunes like I was some sort of 8 year old that had a glass of Kool-Aid and some Handi-Snacks.



The people that think that games like this were for kids were out of their fucking minds. The difficulty for this game is just insane. You have 3 lives, each with 3 hits you can take until you die to finish this game. Sure you can pick up health restoring items, invincibility, and extra lives but you should know...there is no continue.



I got done playing Duck Tales fairly quickly and decided to move on to bigger and brighter things, such as PunchOut!!. Putting the game in my NES, I started to wonder how well my skill would have held up over the years. Amazingly, I got through the two tiers of opponents quickly (only King Hippo fucked me up), and enjoyed the laughable 'cut-scene' that happened after each major belt was won.



I got tired of trying to get to Mr. Dream (the final boxer instead of Mike Tyson) by myself so I decided to cheat and find a code that I could use from the internet. I entered the code with baited breath fully expecting to do somewhat well against the final opponent. I had my ass beat in less than 30 seconds...this point just hammered home what I already knew, that games have become much easier.



After my little bout (haha) with Punchout!! I decided to play a game that I didn't even realize I had in my collection, Double Dragon II: The Revenge. Anyone who was around for any of the Double Dragon games in the arcade can tell you that the series wasn't just any generic beat-em-up, it was THE beat-em-up. This great game's storyline furthered the exploits of Billy and Jimmy Lee and was a major departure from the first game where the damsel in distress isn't captured, but killed.

Unlike my the other NES games that I played on my retro day off, I spent more time playing Double Dragon II than both of the other games combined. I had a blast making my little 2D sprite guy beat the living hell out of other 2D sprite peoples. There were a few parts of the game that pissed me off, such as how easy it was to fall off ledges, and a battle inside a helicopter that has its door open at regular intervals to suck you and your opponent out.



This game was fun as hell to play, but ultimately frustrating because just like Duck Tales, there is no continue. Once you lost all 3 of your lives, it was truly game over. I haven't seen a "Game Over" screen in a long time, much less one that won't give you the option to continue.

I was just having a grand time re-living all of my childhood frustrations and joys. The great thing about the frustrations is that now I am an adult and have adult ways of working out frustrations that don't involve me throwing or biting my controller (beer and wanking take the place of those two), not to mention that I can go to any other game in my library at any time if I really get mad. All in all, I'd say that I had a really good day. Next time I'll have to preach on the greatness that is Super Castlevania IV for the SNES. Thanks for reading.