Ive had enough, let's talk about these "bad" NES games [Archive]

crom

07-08-2009, 12:25 AM

am I the only one around here who, when playing nes games as a child didnt look at any nes games as shitty?

as a kid Id go to jumbo video rent a nes game, play it, till i beat it, then brought it back..

I can not recall criticizing games as hard as some of you...

when nes came out, the only other games I had to compare them to were my atari 2600 games... and by comparison total recall was project natal...

honestly, at recess when I used to swap games with friends we didnt put that much emphasis on what was a bad game...

matter of fact LJN wasnt regarded at all like it is now... sure by comparison years after ok, whatever... but back then no...

when I hear oh nes has 700 games but only 200 are good I think back like, really? I never seemed to think like that at all as a kid... sure, their were better games then others, but again compared to my atari I didnt even notice...

TRM

07-08-2009, 12:40 AM

I do not recall ever thinking that NES games were bad either, back in the day. Between my brother and I, and a dude that worked with my father who lent us games, I got to play maybe 30 or 40 games max. However, most of these games were popular titles such as SMB series, TMNT series, Castlevanias, Rad Racer, Mega Mans, etc. The worst titles I can recall having played were games such as Legend of Kage and Jaws, but even now I don't think that they are terrible games, just not as good as some others.

Only later did I discover what shitty games were. I personally feel that this mentality is connected with finances. As a child, if I plopped $50 to purchase a game or some money to rent a game, I was stuck with it so I would play it for hour on end, until I finished it or got stuck and quit, etc. Today, if I purchase a random lot of 10 NES games for $20, if a game sucks on first or second impression, why waste my time when I have other "tried and true" titles I can play, especially when the money wasted to purchase the sucky game couldn't even buy me a decent beer at the local bar.

Sonicwolf

07-08-2009, 12:50 AM

Kevincal

07-08-2009, 12:52 AM

Seriously, mediocre NES games are better than many of the best 2600 games...

crom

07-08-2009, 12:53 AM

I also think that avgn puts these thoughts into ppls brains...

because personaly...

as a kid, I thought friday the 13th was cool, and scary...

the first tmnt was cool too... u got to sidescroll, drive the turtle van, circle all the turtles... I thought it was fun... bad? no way... I can see how ppl can call it average... but bad? no...

actually metal gear as a kid was regarded around my school and naborhood as a awesome game, its easy to point out the flaws of it nowadays...

so was simons quest, top gun, bart vs the world, battletoads... I know its his character and hes gone on record saying he actually likes certain games, but whatever...

Sonicwolf

07-08-2009, 12:56 AM

Seriously, mediocre NES games are better than many of the best 2600 games...

True, but its hard to make the comparison due to the age gap between the release of the AVCS and the NES. Technology and ideas allowed for much more indepth and technically impressive games by 1985 thus making the previously awesome AVCS games look like shite.

crom

07-08-2009, 12:59 AM

Have any of you ever, EVER, played Back to the Future for the NES? its horrible. I have played it several times and its like a train-wreck in a cartridge. The game play blows, it is too hard and the game doesnt even follow the movie anywhere close to coherently.

I will say this about back to the future...

as a kid, marty mcfly was the coolest guy in the world, back to the future was epic to my life...

so when I played the game I was obviously disapointed... it reminded me of the running man for atari 2600...

check it...

if the game was called clockcatch, or time runner no one would even care, but because it was back to the future and had almost nothing to do with the movie thats why ppl hate on it...

over...

same goes for any LJN game that tried to capitalize on francises...

exit

07-08-2009, 12:59 AM

I rented plenty of games when I was a kid and the only game I remember that my brothers, sister and I ever had a complaint about was Caveman Games. That game was soo terrible that we returned it almost immediately after we rented it, I think they even let us swap it for another game. Other than that I don't ever remember thinking a game was horrible, it was probably because standards weren't set as high as they are now. So we pretty much worked with what we had and didn't think twice about it.

I would say I didn't start thinking about quality of games until the end of the SNES era, by that time the PSX was starting to come on strong and the overall presentation was starting to become more and more important.

The funny thing is that looking back now I don't understand how I played some of the games that I did. I guess having to us my imagination helped me overlook how truly horrible those games were, I mean hell I used to love playing that horrible Muppet game and remember being able to get to the last level a few times without a problem. Now the only way I could play it is by using savestates on an emulator, even then I wasn't able to beat it because the last level is soo broken that it's almost impossible to get passed even with cheating.

Sonicwolf

07-08-2009, 01:02 AM

crom

07-08-2009, 01:18 AM

all im saying is if you grew up with a nes as a kid, I dont think you looked a games as harsh as nowadays...

it seems ppl who caught gaming at the tailend of the snes/genesis era judge games like roger ebert and movies...

I just hate how everything nowadays is awesome, or horrible...

movies are either awesome , or horrible... its good or bad, theres no inbetween

games are the same... it just never seemed, at least, like it used to be like this at all...

ubersaurus

07-08-2009, 01:41 AM

I don't know, even as a kid I thought Circus Caper and Peter Pan were godawful... to say nothing of Kid Icarus or Superman.

Hey, just cuz I was young, didn't mean I was stupid :P

Mathius

07-08-2009, 01:54 AM

TRM

07-08-2009, 01:54 AM

Some people who doubt that the Nintendo Entertainment System had no bad games needs to watch AVGN, pick the games he reviews and really try them out for yourselves. I have found some games I really like but most of them are horrifying like "The Terminator" and "Silver Surfer".

Hehe, I bought Silver Surfer 5 or 10 years after the prime of the NES cuz I thought it looked cool. Damn hard game, but some buddies and I bust it out from time to time to challenge ourselves. Maybe not a great game, but not horrible either, something good enough for me to keep and not sell.

TMNT - I got that game when it first came out and loved it, still do love it. I had never heard that there was so much hate for the game, probably for the same reasons as SMB2, Castlevania 2, etc....too different from the other games in the series, the arcade games, etc.

I felt Back to the Future was low average. I played through it using Game Genie for infinite lives. I bought the game in 1999 or 2000, and did not have the patience to sit and play the game without the Genie lives code, but otherwise played through as it was meant to be played. I never watched the movies though, so that's perhaps why I felt the game was not as bad as others say.

I remember buying a set of 40 some Atari 2600 games from a friend of my brother, and I went through and tried them all in a few hours, realizing that most of the games sucked. However, I didn't grow up with 2600 and as such, this probably helps bias my results. I bet that many of the people who show so much hate for the old NES games are those who grew up playing other systems.

Sosage

07-08-2009, 01:59 AM

I was in Elementary school when the NES came out. Those games cost a shit load of money back then and we had very little, if anything, to really compare the games to (aside from the arcades and the occasional kid that had a computer). Just getting to play the NES back then, with any game, was good enough.

DigitalSpace

07-08-2009, 02:14 AM

Seriously, mediocre NES games are better than many of the best 2600 games...

Here's a few NES games I consider mediocre: Astyanax, Bugs Bunny's Birthday Blowout, Spy vs. Spy, Kung Fu, Mystery Quest, and Milon's Secret Castle. None of them have anything on stuff like Pitfall!, River Raid, Kaboom!, Space Invaders (that's right, the 2600 version), and Yars' Revenge. They may be deeper than some of the best 2600 games, but that doesn't mean they're better.

mr obscure

07-08-2009, 02:31 AM

:-DName me a system that doesn't have bad games.
Maybe im sick ,but i actually love bad nes games( cheetahmen 2,action 52)
I LOVE THEM.
As a kid real bad games made me power on/off my console 20 times or bite my controller.
But i loved it.(favority memory: batman 1 ,the joker battle,die fucker die.)'

about LJN : ''we all know that there is no pot of gold at the end of this rainbow''

I even collected bad nes games that didn't came out in europe.
jaws,silver surfer,xmen,friday the 13,deadly towers,nightmare on elmstreet.
Those games really raised my blood pressure.hahaha

What i found really amazing is disney/child games.
The old disney nes games are better then that xbox 360/ps3/wii stuff today.
I played some of them by family and thought : This is bullshit even the nes games where better.

Baloo

07-08-2009, 02:59 AM

I don't really own any truly bad games, Top Gun and Who Framed Roger Rabbit are pretty mediocre.

Push Upstairs

07-08-2009, 03:10 AM

am I the only one around here who, when playing nes games as a child didnt look at any nes games as shitty?

I didn't, until I got "Bart vs. The Space Mutants".

And you know what the salt in the wound is? (if you don't know this story)

I picked it over Star Tropics.

mobiusclimber

07-08-2009, 03:44 AM

Even as a kid, I knew there were crappy games and that I didn't want to play them. It started with the Atari. I didn't own one (didn't own an NES either), but a neighbor did and boy did it have some crap. There were also plenty of good games, but I really can't remember them. What I do remember is junk like Pong and Pac-Man. And yes I just called Pong "junk." Historical, sure, but a lousy lousy game. Maybe I was just spoiled.

I played a ton of arcade games. That's why the Atari just paled in comparison. Space Invaders, Asteroids, Galaga, Milipede, etc etc etc. So many awesome games. I'm not sure if it was just my neighbor's collection that sucked or if most Atari games just weren't as good as what you could play in the arcades.

Several friends had NES consoles and I'd play them when I was over at their house. And there were plenty of games I hated. Heck, they didn't even have to necessarily be BAD games. Hated (and still do) the original Mario Bros game, for instance. I can't remember too many of the crappy games that I played, mostly b/c I would only play a bad game once or twice before I remembered it was bad.

First console I ever owned was the Genesis. And the first game I owned for it (that was mine alone, not my sister's and not the pack-in title) was Fatal Labyrinth. I almost beat it on the first day, but I hated every minute of it.

Berserker

07-08-2009, 03:52 AM

am I the only one around here who, when playing nes games as a child didnt look at any nes games as shitty?

Speaking for myself, I thought some games were bad as a kid, but there wasn't internet around then, so I kept these thoughts to myself. It was less of a case of "I think this game is shit, and so I'm going to go on for 10 minutes about why I think it's shit", and instead more like "Ok, I didn't like that game, but I did like this other game, so I'll play more of this other game". So it was more of a personal preference that only went on inside my head as opposed to putting on some kind of spectacle.

It was only after the internet came that some sort of loose collective consciousness was established, and then suddenly liking games like Zelda II, Mario 2, Castlevania II is construed as some kind of act of rebellion, as opposed to what it originally was - that you simply liked those games and wanted to play more of them.

So yeah, it's just another factor that wasn't there when we were kids. Additionally I think heaping too much importance on it one way or the other is also missing the original point. It's there, but it's not that important, so there's not much point in railing against it or getting too worked up about it, IMO.

Sonicwolf

07-08-2009, 03:56 AM

I think children are a little bit less critical of the quality of video games. I used to adore the Phantom Menace for the PC/PS and now when I play I think "What the hell was I on?". Its really not as amazing and awesome as I found it back in 1999/2000.

adam_devry

07-08-2009, 06:24 AM

Garry Silljo

07-08-2009, 06:27 AM

jacrough

07-08-2009, 07:55 AM

The Action 52.

Enough said.

BHvrd

07-08-2009, 07:58 AM

I don't think it's all that bad really. It doesn't follow he movie well like you stated, but it's still playable and people who think it's too hard just suck at video games. It can be won with little to no problems.

I agree. I liked the game alot back in the day and it was a fun little title, I beat the game with a little effort, but it wasn't as hard as alot of other games at the time, I don't get the criticism, but then again I liked Link: Faces of Evil on CD-i. :D

chrisbid

07-08-2009, 08:22 AM

the only way to have your opinion heard on the internet is to scream it the loudest volume possible, and to do that you must claim that x is the best or worst y of all time. any attempt at nuance will water down your importance on the subject

good 2600 games > average NES games (unless you are a graphics whore)

Ro-J

07-08-2009, 08:43 AM

I think the people who had a NES did not really have any choice but to like the game since there was really nothing to compare them to. If you look back now you see many many games that suck on the nes. When I was a kid and played the nes i knew when a game was bad.

JAWS
BIGFOOT
FRIDAY THE 13
Back to the future
TIME LORD
T&C SURF
SKATE OR DIE
BIBLE GAMES
OPERATION WOLF
CALIFORNIA GAMES

just to name a few even as a kid i knew sucked

As a kid I liked Jaws, T&C Surf Designs, Operation Wolf and California Games. I actually have very fond nostalgic memories of T&C although it didn't last more then 10 minutes when I tried to play it again recently.

Back then I purchased or borrowed games so rarely (at least when compared to how quickly people go through games these days) that I really got into any game I could and played it to death. I don't remember thinking any game back then was crappy, just some were a lot more frustrating than others.

MachineGex

07-08-2009, 09:06 AM

Atari 2600 doesnt really have too many adventure/platformer games. NES really shined in that area.
Mario Bros.
Zelda
Metroid
Megaman
What I love about the 2600 is it has a bunch of really fun 2 player games and high score type of games. You can't really find too many of those on the NES.
Games like:
Maze Craze (2 player game)
Slot Racer (2 player game)
Indy 500 (2 player game)
Warlords (4 player game)
Space Invaders (high score)
Megamania (high score)

As you can see, these are two totally different type of games. Depending on which type of game you prefer is going to way heavily on how much you like a game.

kaedesdisciple

07-08-2009, 09:25 AM

No, even back then I knew some of these games were awful. Take Infiltrator for one. I got this game way back when, popped it in, spent a few hours wandering around in both modes trying to figure out what in the hell I was supposed to do and wanted my hours back. I tried going back to this game as I got older figuring time would help me "get it." Nope, I still don't get it and the game still sucks.

I also knew that the first TMNT was awful then. I remember thinking things like:
"why can't the turtles swim in the first stage when they fall in the sewer but the second half of the second stage is them swimming underwater?"
"why am I fighting all these generic enemies that don't even remotely resemble anything in the show?"
"who in the hell play-tested this thing and said yea, it's good?"

I had far fewer games then than I do now, but I most certainly have always been able to tell a good game from a bad one IMO.

Baloo

07-08-2009, 09:35 AM

The first TMNT was pretty bad, but it's still playable. Until that second level, I'd like to know how Konami actually got this game out. Hey, it sold really well though, so they probably didn't care. It was a pretty horrible game though.

tomaitheous

07-08-2009, 10:13 AM

The first TMNT wasn't bad until you got to that stupid under water, deactivate the bombs nonsense. Never did past that part. That made it one short game for me...

Also, games didn't "have" to follow a movie plot exactly. Loosely based was just fine. Batman on NES is a prime example and better that it didn't exactly follow the movie.

People, mostly who've never played or had an NES growing up, misinterpret the 'Nerd. Just because he's reviewing shitty/annoying NES games, doesn't mean he's trying to point out the NES was shit. And yet I've seen people takeaway from his videos just that. His review on Metal Gear was bull shit though. Maybe he wasn't old enough to enjoy the game (he's fairly young still considering the NES' age), but that game was held as a badass game BITD. It wasn't till the aid of the internet that the Hideo Kojima cock-knobbing elitists learned of the lineage and disowned the game (and the NES sequel). Prick bastards.

I give the 'Nerd due credit, though. Most of the games he trashes are crap. Though some that were barely mediocre then, are crap now. Rambo was a crappy game, but I liked it and manage to finish it.

scooterb23

07-08-2009, 11:13 AM

I agree very much with the original poster's message. Growing up, I had a 2600, and I surely didn't find the games horrible, and my collection was not filled with classics. Every game offered me some enjoyment. Maybe it was the wonder of having games in my house so I didn't have to go to the mall, or whatever the reason. I had a collection of 86 games for my 2600, and didn't hate a single one.

Same for the NES. I didn't get many games for the NES back in the day, but dammit, I played the hell out of what I got. Whether it was Super Mario 3 (which I sat and beat the day I got it, playing every single level, in about 8 hours), or Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (probably spent more time with it than I did Super Mario 3). I just loved playing the games. And none of them were "bad" Although Back to the Future frustrated me to no end.

I don't think I started noticing that some games were really "bad" until I started really collecting, and buying up everything I could find. Once I really started to get into games, and understand what I liked, and what I didn't like, I could then go back to my original collection...and really see "Wow, that Bill and Ted game was 15 shades of awful", but it wasn't until I personally had enough experience that I could make that judgement.

These days, all you have to do is watch "The Nerd" and he'll tell you your opinion of the game, and I guess that's what works for folks. Personally, I'd rather get my hands on the games, and judge for myself. I don't mind video reviews of games, heck I may do some myself here in the near future, but I don't think it's a good thing that people seem to just regurgitate the reviewer's opinion as their own. Which I do see happen at times.

old_skoolin_jim

07-08-2009, 11:23 AM

I agree with most of what everybody's saying, but here's my two cents on the subject anyways:
I grew up first with a 2600 when I was really little (like, younger than 5) and then got an NES that I enjoyed for the next 5 years until I got my Genesis.
As far as I remember, both of my older brothers and I would judge games as being "good" and "bad", but we were always stuck with what we rented/borrowed (only actually owned a handful of games, I borrowed a lot from friends), so we made do.
Some games I remember as being "bad":
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Infiltrator ("You blew it, Jimbo!"), Rocky & Bullwinkle (a big birthday-rental disappointment)
Some "mediocre" games I liked (and usually beat):
Jaws, Skate or Die, TMNT 1 (only beat with an emulator... a CRAP ending rivaled only by Battletoads'!!), Rambo, Caveman Games (when you got the controls down it could be pretty funny), Time Lord (never got past the 4th level... stupid 3rd level boss took FOREVER to kill)
And as a side note, when I finally got my Sega, I didn't always judge a game on how it played, but by how cheesy it was. Early genny titles had a LOT of cheese balls.
Cheese balls? ZOOM, Altered Beast (never got why or how that game is regarded as a 'classic'), and I used to even put Phantasy Star 3 into that cheese category based on its... umm... monster designs.

StakeRaiser

07-08-2009, 11:42 AM

I don't anymore because

1. These days, I find that even the worst nes games have charm
2. You can buy most of the "crappy" games for only a couple of dollars now, so you don't feel ripped off, unlike back then, when paying 40 bucks for Super Pitfall would really wreck your month.

JohnnyBlaze

07-08-2009, 12:04 PM

1 Word: WRESTLEMANIA!!!!!!!

k8track

07-08-2009, 12:08 PM

Seriously, mediocre NES games are better than many of the best 2600 games...
Seriously, this statement is severely flawed. You'd pick Urban Champion over Jr. Pac-Man? OK, whatever.

tom

07-08-2009, 12:15 PM

Godzilla, any Baseball or Football or Basketball game

exit

07-08-2009, 01:03 PM

Am I the only one that actually liked and still likes Friday the 13th? I always found the game fun in it's own way and still play the game sometimes just to see how long I can make it, despite me usually ending up getting everyone killed in the cave.

I remember not liking Zelda II very much as a kid, it's probably because it was a very difficult game and I had a hard time getting past the first palace.

Pezcore343

07-08-2009, 01:21 PM

You guys also have to try to remember that the AVGN is there for entertainment. It even says on his website's on FAQ page that his shows are meant to parody real Angry Nerds out there by getting so bent out of shape about the tiniest things. For example:

It's obvious in some of his reviews that he only says they're "bad" because he doesn't know how to play them (at least his character doesn't). When trying to land the plane in Top Gun, the reason it doesn't work well for him is because he hits the buttons like a sequence when it says up up, down down, etc. Instead of holding the D-Pad in that direction to stabilize the plane.

Some people take him a bit too seriously and give those games a bad rep for no reason. Meanwhile, other games just are that bad. I've played Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and even with a walkthrough and knowing what to do, it still sucks balls. So yeah, there are bad NES games out there. As many as some people claim? No, but they exist.

Sosage

07-08-2009, 03:22 PM

Godzilla, any Baseball or Football or Basketball game

I'm guessing you are putting these in the bad category? Baseball Stars series? Tecmo Bowl series? Base Wars?!?

tom

07-08-2009, 03:42 PM

I'm guessing you are putting these in the bad category? Baseball Stars series? Tecmo Bowl series? Base Wars?!?

yep, I hate those sports games, even soccer

Gentlegamer

07-08-2009, 03:47 PM

NES games are like sex and pizza. When they are bad, they're still pretty good.

Rob2600

07-08-2009, 04:14 PM

As children, my friends and I were much more tolerant of mediocre NES games, but we definitely recognized when we were playing really bad ones:

Deadly Towers
Ghostbusters
Ikari Warriors II: Victory Road
Super Pitfall
T&C Surf Designs
Tag Team Wrestling
etc.

Gentlegamer

07-08-2009, 10:39 PM

Oh man, Ikari Warriors II! I remember liking the original quite a bit, then playing the sequel and thinking, "this isn't as good (it kinda sucks)."

Fuyukaze

07-09-2009, 12:09 AM

I actualy liked Ikari Warriors II. Then again I remember playing it as a kid with my mother. I also remember using the cheat code every 10-15 seconds.....

exit

07-09-2009, 12:37 AM

Super Pitfall is another game that I enjoyed as a child that everyone else seems to hate. Maybe it was because the whole game itself was mysterious to me, because you really had no idea what you were doing and the entire game was one big level of exploration.

Another game that I really enjoyed was Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and is another game that has a lot of negative reception around it. I actually got to the end of the game a few times and could never beat it, I never knew what you had to do to kill Doom.

Sosage

07-09-2009, 12:50 AM

I actualy liked Ikari Warriors II. Then again I remember playing it as a kid with my mother. I also remember using the cheat code every 10-15 seconds.....

I was under the impression Ikari Warriors II is the money Ikari Warriors, with I and III being considered "blah, okay" and "enh, what?".

Super Pitfall

I bought this one off of a friend in 92/93 and wanted to believe it wasn't shit. What a frustrating fucking game. Although I am very much with you on the mysterious feeling. It was just one giant...weird...level. /me looks over at NES collection...thinks about popping in Super Pitfall...

Blitzwing256

07-09-2009, 12:55 AM

you had to use the charged up punch repeatedly, it took FOREVER. the exploding ciggars did decent damage to him too..

I'm also in the camp of loving super pitfall (its in my top 20 nes games) yes it was buggy and had long load times, but it was a wonderfull exploration game with alot to see if you gave it a chance. same with deadly towers (HAAAAAAAAAARD) and yes even friday the 13th,tmnt, rambo and zelda 2.

I think those games are hated so much because they aren't just mindless "go right games" they each tried something diferent, all by no means perfect but had thier own charm and nothing quite like them existed at the time.

Sonicwolf

07-09-2009, 01:35 AM

Anyone else really like Nightmare on Elm Street? I think its just a good, average platformer that is damned hard.

old_skoolin_jim

07-09-2009, 02:10 AM

Friday the 13th always makes me jump when Jason comes out of nowhere in one of the cabins! I actually enjoy it because of that fact, but it's a damn hard game.

Rickstilwell1

07-09-2009, 02:14 AM

I never have a burning hate for any game in particular. Games I don't think I can beat I just play up to the part where I die from time to time and see if I ever make it any farther. If a game is way too boring I just don't even bother firing it up except maybe once in a very very great while. Less exciting games go in the back of the bookshelf hiding behind better games while my top favorites go in the front.

I'm not into sports games that much unless they are really high quality like a Mario variation, but I am sure there will come a time when I want to fire up all my sports games and see if the gameplay style allows me to win just a single exhibition. Then I can make a list of playable games and a shit list for the ones that have terrible play control. It would be even funnier to do this as 2-players with my girlfriend so we can have a laugh together. We can see if either of us have a chance at getting the game right or if it's a stalemate and the game is just unplayable.

kupomogli

07-09-2009, 02:18 AM

Here's a few NES games I consider mediocre: Astyanax

Your entire post failed once you listed Astyanax as being a bad game. Astyanax is an amazing game.

Also to note. The second area in TMNT is not hard at all. The game doesn't start getting hard until you get to the Foot Clan base or inside the Technodrome.

Here are some good games that the Nerd has bashed also(or atleast games you'll get some enjoyment out of.) The list also isn't just NES games but some others as well.

Castlevania 2, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, TMNT, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Fester's Quest, Rambo, Moonwalker, and Terminator 2 for SNES(somewhat.)

RASK1904

07-09-2009, 02:33 AM

When I was young I would always trade 1 of my good games for 2 or 3 of any crap games. So by the end I had maybe 20 or so not so good games. I remember Muscels, Mighty Bomb Jack, Stinger, Guantlet, Tag Team Wrestling, Cammando, California Games, Ice Hockey, Gotcha, Jaws, Legendary Wings, Kung Fu Hero's, Top Gun. I think you get the point. Not horrible games but definitly not, say... Mario 2 or Zelda. Not to say I never had those I'd just trade them away for 2 or 3 games. But for me these (plus a few more good ones I loved and never traded Blaster Master and R.C. Pro-AM) are the games that I enjoy. They are not the best but when I was 13 and poor I would play these games over and over. So now I remember them fondly. The only one I still hate to this day is Top Gun. I have a friend who remembers Nes games and he can't understand how I like Mighty Bomb Jack or Stinger. But I do. There kinda part of my life story.

DigitalSpace

07-09-2009, 02:33 AM

Anyone else really like Nightmare on Elm Street? I think its just a good, average platformer that is damned hard.

I wouldn't say "really like," but I do like the game. Imo, it was one of LJN's better offerings (along with Wolverine and Gotcha!). Came close to beating it once I figured things out and someday I'll try again.

o2william

07-09-2009, 02:49 AM

My best friend owned A Nightmare on Elm Street when we were kids, and I always enjoyed it. It is tough, but I managed to get good enough to make it all the way through and kill Freddy. My recollection is that you have to play as the Ninja, and try not to die, even once. Awesome music. It's strange that I haven't found a copy for my NES collection yet.

Push Upstairs

07-09-2009, 03:30 AM

I remember an NES game that I bought used at a game store/pawn shop in 1992 that was a total blind buy for me. I seem to recall the only reason I bought the game was because it was $12 (I earned $6 and my dad spotted me another $6).

The name of this game? Life Force.

The only thing bad about that game is the lack of an actual ending.

Famidrive-16

07-09-2009, 04:33 AM

I also think that avgn puts these thoughts into ppls brains...

To be fair, most of the examples you put were some of the 'better' games he reviewed.

I don't think many people would've enjoyed Wally Bear as a kid as much as those other games. I played it as a kid and even back then I thought it was terrible, and keep in mind I pretty much fit your criteria that you're talking about, I played and enjoyed just about anything, excluding Wally bear and some other games.

mobiusclimber

07-09-2009, 06:47 AM

What's funny is that my family and I were and are super poor. As a kid I, too, was stuck w/ crappy games and had to make do. I don't think I'd have beaten Lagoon (SNES) if I'd have purchased it today instead of as a teen. That doesn't change my view of the game (frustrating, bland, cliched... but killer music). There were still lots of games that I owned that I thought were crappy, but I always played them as far as I possibly could. That's why I got to the last boss in Fatal Labyrinth, it's why I got to the fourth castle in Drakkhen (oh lord...), it's why I even beat A FAERIE TALE ADVENTURE! But that didn't cause me to like or even appreciate the games. I just knew I had to squeeze whatever enjoyment out of them I could. Even in a game as absolutely, mind-blowingly horrible as Drakkhen, I cheered when I was finally able to beat that star monster thing you encounter at night in the desert. I think that's more to do w/ the Warhol effect (stare at nothing happening for an hour so that when something DOES happen, no matter how insignificant or stupid or mundane, you cheer) than it does to the game having a redeeming feature.

I know, this is meant to be about NES games, but I just didn't own a NES back then. I wasn't forced to try to enjoy the garbage games on there. But anyone who says there weren't garbage games is delusional. If you can enjoy stuff like Beetlejuice, Tag Team Wrestling, Fist of the North Star, Conan, Total Recall, Raid on Bungeling Bay... not to mention all the horrible unlicensed games... then you and I have very different standards.

I do think that people tend to confuse "different" with "terrible," and that a lot of the games people don't like are either personal taste or just because the game is doing something that they don't expect it to do (like Zelda II), and not because it's necessarily bad. I can at least try to see the good in games that I just don't personally care for. It's not always easy though. I consider the Wizards & Warriors series to be incredibly wonky, but apparently there are a lot of people that love it. Not my cuppa.

obesolete

07-09-2009, 11:19 AM

I actually liked zelda 2 better than the first... call me crazy, but i'm a sucker for it somehow.
I love TMNT.
I love Friday the 13th.

I think I tend to rate games on how long they can hold my attention for. I remember having a sega disc for ps2 and playing through random games in hopes to catch a golden ticket. Of all the stupid games I ended up playing all the way through was Crystal's Pony Tales... and i'm not sure why. I'm not a girly girl in the least bit but somehow this game made for retarded little girls who can't play anything harder than tetris held me until I beat it.
I remember my bf at the time coming home to see me playing and asked me WTF. I had no answer for him.

So these BAD games that we're told are all a matter of personal preference.
to me. Final Fantasy 7 and up are considered BAD. D=

Ruudos

07-09-2009, 02:07 PM

Am I only one who finds the swimming level from TMNT easy?

Daria

07-09-2009, 02:20 PM

ButtonMasher123

07-09-2009, 03:01 PM

I actually liked zelda 2 better than the first... call me crazy, but i'm a sucker for it somehow.

Your not alone in thinking that. I had them both when I was kid and I always enjoyed the second one more than the first. The combat in Zelda 2 just always felt more satisfying to me than the combat in the first. Of course I owned Zelda 2 before Zelda 1 so I can see how it would been disappointing to see them change the style of game up if you were used to the first one.

As far as the topic is concerned I think to understand why we view the games differently now than than we did back then you have to put yourself into the mindset of that time. As a young kid playing the NES back then if you received or bought a bad game you were pretty much stuck with it for the next six months or so until the next holiday came along to get a chance at another one. You therefore learned to get used to the various flaws in these games or else you weren't playing anything.

That still doesn't explain things completely though. I remember people not being so cynical about games back then the way they are now. The NES era was a new and excting time to be a kid when games had taking a huge step forward from the atari days. It was the first time when games looked and sounded good enough for you to get wrapped up in whatever world that game was portraying. There are a number of games that I know are bad now like the Karate Kid and Rambo that enjoyed the heck out of back then for this very reason.

I wasn't thinking about how broken the game mechanics for Karate Kid were back then. I was too excited that I was now able to play out the main charcter role in one of my favorite movies. The pleasure of seeing these different interactive worlds come to life in these games far outweighed the flawed game mechanics is what I am trying to say basically.

Push Upstairs

07-09-2009, 04:07 PM

Am I only one who finds the swimming level from TMNT easy?

I had a friend who could breeze through that level like it was nothing. He didn't need maps either.

Garry Silljo

07-09-2009, 04:43 PM

Am I only one who finds the swimming level from TMNT easy?

Took me 3 or four tries. After that is was a piece of cake.

RASK1904

07-09-2009, 04:45 PM

mobiusclimber

07-10-2009, 04:11 AM

Back then you couldn't just go online and check the ratings and see what they say is a good game. Now psssh... You can see what games to avoid. If you liked Karate Kid the movie, I'm sure when you got that game you where stoked as a kid. Now that I have over 400 different Nes games I really don't expect too much from them. Really there all crappy! I just enjoy them. I don't go around trying to change peoples opinions on them. They are what they are. Crap. I Mean come on there 20+ years old. You think a 20+ year old telephone, T.V., or dishwasher is gonna be bad ass? But no these are more like Movies or albums and yes some are better than others. Classics! But allot really suck! You have to use your 1987 eyes. You can not compare them to today or even bring the knowledge of years sense. You have to look at them as they where back then. Also some of the rarer crappy games most people didn't have to put up with back then. They where rare then too. It's only now that us collectors dig so god damn deep that most of us even know they exist let alone suck.

I might have a hard time enjoying them, but I only recently got a NES and I have to tell you, a LOT of the games for it really are bad ass. But the fact is, the NES has a huge library of games and a good percentage of those games are just unplayable. Yet even someone that didn't grow up playing the NES can still appreciate the gems. I really thought I'd have a hard time looking past the graphics and the "primitive" gameplay in some of these games, but nope. A good example is Dragon Warrior. Should suck compared to RPGs now, but I had a lot of fun with it. Sure, it didn't have an "epic" story or a huge cast of characters, but it didn't need to, either. Sometimes simple is best. There's at least something to be said for a game that doesn't require more than two buttons.

tomaitheous

07-10-2009, 09:53 AM

I actually liked zelda 2 better than the first... call me crazy, but i'm a sucker for it somehow.

Indeed. Zelda 2 > Zelda 1. I liked Zelda 1, a lot, but 2 but was just awesome. (For the record, I played them in order, when they first came out)

Mezmoron

07-10-2009, 11:07 AM

I may have been a kid at the time. But even at that age I could see Hydlide for what it really was - an unplayable pile of poo. Besides that one I like to think I gave all my NES games a fair shake. And I even loved some of the crappier titles: Big Foot, Fester's Quest, and Cave Man Games spring to mind. But I don't think it has much to do with the era of gaming at the time. Kids still like crappy games based on their favorite movies and tv shows.

I was waiting for someone to bring up Hydlide. This was the ONLY game that I hated as a child. My mother bought it for me (we all know that most Mom's were terrible at buying games), and I told her to return it. I had no idea what I was doing and the manual did not help at all. I recently sat down with it and a walkthrough and beat it. It's still a pretty bad game.

Many people are bringing up random games that they like or dislike...It's pretty obvious that almost any game on the NES has a special place in someone's heart.

I loved Caveman Games as a kid. I loved Astynax as a kid. I loved Back to the Future as a kid. Hell, my Grandma bought me Quattro Sports from QVC and I played it all the time.

I guess what I'm getting at is...a game that is bad to you may have a special memory for someone else.

Ken

Kevincal

07-10-2009, 11:13 AM

I actually never much liked Zelda 1 NES... Maybe I'm just not smart enough, but all I ever did in that game is wander around aimlessly wondering just where in the heck exactly I was supposed to be going, or what in the world I was supposed to be doing! :D

NES games I had as a kid and what I thought of them:

Mario 1 = Got me interested in video games. Awesome game.

Duck Hunt = awesome fun for its time.

Mario 2 = More good 2d Mario fun, even if it originally wasn't a Mario game...

Mario 3 = BEST GAME EVER!!! :D

Zelda 1 = I like shooting stuff and the music. Just not my type of game though.

TMNT 1 = I had fun with it, was a big TMNT cartoon, movie, card collecting fan. Of course never beat the game and always thought it was really hard.

TMNT 2 = Really good game imo. Good fun

Top Gun = Fun for about 10 minutes. Always a thrill if you are able to actually land on the aircraft carrier. It's really not THAT hard...

Ice Hockey, just love this game.

Bases Loaded II - Great baseball game for its time. Lots of fun.

Target Renegade - Good beat em up fun.

Pinball = great fun

Tetris = great of course

Batman = good fun

Excitebike = great fun, love making my own courses

Duck Tales = really great game.

And finally, Mike Tyson's Punchout. Just an awesomely fun game. I've beaten Mike numerous times. :D

DigitalSpace

07-10-2009, 03:30 PM

http://i28.tinypic.com/205tyl5.jpg

JohnnyBlaze

07-10-2009, 04:55 PM

Super Pitfall

No,no,no! It's not Super Pitfall. It's Super Shitfall!

Nesmaster

07-10-2009, 08:54 PM

Being really young when the NES was hot and rentals were everywhere, I can't really recall renting too many bad games. I remember renting my favorites over and over again. Mega man 2, 3, and 4, Snow Brothers, Kickle Cubicle, Rockin Kats, Yo Noid!, Wacky Races, Bucky O' Hare. These games I distinctly remember renting over and over and loving them to death every time.

On the other hand of the spectrum... I remember renting Dr. Chaos and HATING it. Same with Dick Tracy. Gilligan's Island, X-Men... terrible. Monster Truck Rally, while being very bad and broken, I enjoyed for whatever reason. I'm sure there are many more bad games I rented, but I just can't remember too many.