Meeting the NES

The Nintendo Entertainment System. The console that saved the gaming industry

The year is 1990. 8 year old me got a call from my cousin telling me his parents got him a Nintendo. I had only seen the system in magazines and TV so I rushed down his house (accompanied of course by my mother) to see the system. It was nothing much, just a grey VCR type box, not very exciting. He got it with the game "Kung Fu". His dad hooked it up the TV and he turned it on.



WOW! The graphics, the sound, the movement, the sprites where all awesome (I had an Amstrad CPC 6128 back then with the green monitor and the difference was HUGE). We played and played until it got dark outside. The minute I got home I knew that I had to get one, but my parents always told me that they'll buy me a PC instead as it's far more useful than a video game system (Well it was more useful but not as fun!).

So no Nintendo for me at that time, but I got a 486 PC with 4 MB of RAM and half a Gigabyte hard drive, state of the art back then. I really enjoyed my PC, but the thought of owning an NES always tortured my mind. I had to get one.

One day, same year, I was hanging with a friend at his house and he told me that his landlord (who lived on the upper floor) had a NES with lots of games. "Let's go check it out", he said. We climbed the stairs up to the 3rd floor and pressed the doorbell. I was very anxious to see the "pile of games" my friend described me. His wife opened the door and my friend asked if we could play some NES. "Okay kids", she said, "Play as long as you want".

We sat in front of the TV and she opened the TV furniture's cabinet. "Pick one", she said. WOW! There were hundreds of games in there! It was like Scrooge's money bin, but with NES carts! We played and played tons of them. Ikari Warriors, Commando, all the SMBs, Chip n' Dale, a driving game (I can't really remember it, but not Rad Racer), RC Pro AM, Arch Rivals and lots more!

But the ultimate strike was, what else, The Legend of Zelda.

My cousin bought this game and from the instant we popped the cart inside and fired up the NES it was love at first sight. The title screen, the music, the epic adventure, the SAVE feature, all in a wonderful gold cartridge. I must have beat this game over 20 or 30 times, both quests and I occasionally still play it. Also the save feature (battery backed up cartridge) still works after 23 years!

More coming soon, on future posts.

-NES Cat