NES Life Lessons
8 Life Lessons Learned Playing the Original Nintendo Entertainment System
Super Mario Brothers was the single greatest game ever created as far as my friend group was concerned. We were the ones thrilled to bring the video arcade home in the Atari 2600. The pixely gameplay evolved but each game was essentially a re-ordered world similar to the ones before. Story lines enhanced the colored-blocks blinking across the TV screen but graphics and sounds were simplistic. Then came the adventure game where you enter a colorful world with distinctive creatures and hummable music! We played Super Mario ad-nauseum finding and mastering the little hacks integrated into the game. Remember how to get up to ninety-nine lives on level two? Remember how to warp to the other worlds? How fast could you beat the game? Did you rescue Peach by playing every level on every world, or did you efficiently warp through the worlds to the final level? Games evolved in those early years but there was something valuable the first-gen NES gamers learned that I want to consider.
Watch and wait your turn. In the original games there was no such thing as cooperative or simultaneous play. Two player games were actually, sit and wait your turn as you waited for your friend to misstep over the edge or get scorched by Bowser’s fire ball. Experienced and skilled friends would make a single life last a really long time. The true whiz beat the game which was thrilling and boring! When one person played you watched and you waited with the same support and encouragement as you expected on your turn.
Pee before your turn. On the other side of watching and waiting was the idea of your turn. We learned with the Atari that once your turn began there was no stopping it. All urgencies would need to wait. When the NES games showed up one of the most incredible improvements was game pause. Imagine the researchers taking notes on young kids playing into the later rounds of Asteriods. Game pause was a million dollar idea! Pressing the START button to pause the game was revolutionary but ruined our gaming groove. A relieving pee break almost guaranteed a Koopa Troopa disaster moments later. Slamming bathroom doors and clinking of raised toilet lids preceded truly great game play!
Keep your cool. We had to power off the unit before ejecting the cartridge. The order mattered or else you could fry your cartridge or console – or at least that’s what we assumed. This was especially difficult when angry about being skewered by a flaming rod as we ducked a fireball! The spring-loaded cartridge tray would pop up with the simplest touch so we had to slow down, press the front power button before popping and pulling the game. If this wasn’t enough reason to keep your cool, mom or an older sibling was often within earshot of any angry outburst ready to send us outside to play and break the screen spell.
Share your stuff and take care of other’s stuff. One cartridge, one game. This was not new to the cassette and VHS tape generation. With limited means we had a choice when perusing the video game aisle at Toys R Us. Did I buy the game that everyone was playing, or did I buy the game that no one had? And games were expensive for this kid who had to use his own hard-earned money! In the late 1980s and early 1990s older games cost $20 and new games rose to $40. Accounting for inflation today I imagine it would be like buying a new iPhone! We learned to share and trade with friends, and take care of our friend’s stuff. Where do you think the phrase, “You break it you buy it!” came from?
Blow it off. Well-played gaming consoles and cartridges sometimes powered on with weird lines or a blank, unresponsive screen. We learned that when a cartridge is inserted and powered on but does appear on the screen, power-off, pull out the cartridge and blow it off. What were we actually doing? No one really knew but it was stupid not to try. From my present vantage point we believed dust was hindering the connection, moisture improved the connection, or it was a breath and prayer for good luck! What we all knew was invisible forces were at work dusting and ruining everything in our world. We fought back bringing order to the world by blowing it off or vacuuming it from our bedroom carpet when our parents told us to.
Know what matters, master the basics. Extra bells and whistles don’t matter. The console is the same no matter the extras that came with it. My NES was a Christmas gift from my parents, the deluxe version with Duck Hunt and required cabled gun, and Gyromite with the top-spinning robot. These were fun for a few weeks and then the odds and ends disappeared into the tub of not-played-with until donated. Aftermarket joystick improvements promised improved game play; An advantage that became a disadvantage when reverting back to the original controller at a friend’s house. Truly great gamers mastered the original controllers unaided. We learned to not get distracted by the extras and master the basics.
Watch your step. Mind the cables. No one ran in front of the TV because to do so was to flip the controller from a friend’s hand or more devastating, hurl the unit from top of the TV to the ground. Everything had a cord! There was a cord to the outlet, a cord to the TV and a cord to each controller. These cords were tethers keeping us in close proximity. Going unplugged was unthinkable. It’s hard to imagine this today in the Bluetooth, WiFi and wire-free world! One day we’ll be advising all those cellular and WiFi waves, “mind the humans!”
Every ending is truly a fresh start. In the original Nintendo Game Over really meant something. There were no auto- or progressive-saves. When you died you started over. When the game was over it was over. When you next powered up you started at the very beginning of the whole game! This seems unthinkable and a profound disadvantage for the long, complex gameplay nowadays. But repeating the early stages to the advanced levels permitted us the ability to master them. Increased mastery resulted in increased confidence. Increased confidence was better than any gold-chromed trophy! We had to cope with our disappointment but learned the resilience of one more time.
The Nintendo Entertainment System was a cultural phenomenon for so many boys – and many girls. It channeled our competitive energy and curious spirits into a fascinating world that would birth the internet, MySpace and virtual reality gaming. We would spend hours alone in front of the TV and huddled with a few friends cheering one another on and recounting the great gaming feats we witnessed. The less-than-athletic types could be a hero for their adept hand-eye coordination in a new way. So many other lessons could be discussed including: Keep the volume down, Three lives and you’re out, Earn an extra life, Get your chores done first and more! I guess you could consider Bowser’s Castle the Hogwarts’s Castle of my generation!
What was your experience, memory or life lesson from the NES?