Five NES games I can play for hours
I got back into 8-bit games a couple years ago and have spent a lot of time getting aquainted, or in many cases re-aquainted, with vintage Nintendo games.
We didn’t have a console when I was a kid, but we’d rent one on occasion, and plenty of cousins and friends had consoles and games.
So I was never that far away from an NES controller.
I have a notoriously short attention span, which means I’ll get all excited for a game, and 15 minutes later I’m back on my phone. Truth of the matter is that I’m not even that great a gamer, but here are five wormhole games that’ll keep me glued to my CRT TV without any interruption. (Some honourable mentions must be made to Super Mario Bros. 3, Burger Time, Metroid, Ghoul School, Toobin, and Pro Wrestling.)
5. Batman (1989)
One of the best 8-bit soundtracks ever. The gameplay is tight, sometimes frustrating. Utility belt gets lots of action. Beating this one as a kid was a badge of courage.
4. Faxanadu (1989)
I did a deep-dive into 8-bit RPGs late last year and Faxanadu came out a winner. An incredibly fleshed-out RPG that tested the limits of the NES.
3. Mike Tyson’s Punch Out (1987)
I hadn’t played Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out since my 9th birthday party and picked it up again recently. It is insane just how fun and playable this game still is. I’d forgotten that if you lost a match, all you had to do was fight the preceding opponent again to get back on track. Probably one of the, if not best, boxing games ever made for any gaming console.
2. Pirates! (1991)
I spent a solid summer/year playing the PC edition of Pirates! on my XT and have gone back to it alot over the years. I recently got the Ultra Games! NES port, and while the NES ports were always inferior copies of the source, the graphics here are a step above what I had on my CGA monitor. It felt like getting back on a bike, even remembering where certain towns were located on the map.
1. Castlevania (1986)
Nothing to say other than this is one of the greatest games ever made.
