Those first few moments of picking up a controller to play Donkey Kong for the first time will forever be etched into my memories. Since that was my first experience with a video game. (As a side note I played the Donkey Kong Classics version so it won't be in this section of my retrospective.) Twenty-eight years later I continue to pick up a controller to play and create levels in Super Mario Maker. So at first glance it may not seem like much has changed but that isn't true. Over time the types of games I tend to play have changed while the games also change thanks to advances of technology. After thinking about this for a bit I thought it would be nice to play 30 to 60 minutes of each game I own leading up to the present day. While also writing a paragraph about all of the games. Which might not sound like a giant time commitment till I note that I have over 900 video games in my collection. I'll be going in chronological order going by release date. So without further ado let us begin with the NES.

NES

Ah yes the Nintendo Entertainment System, the console that started to revitalize a market that was on a decline. Without Nintendo deciding to put out this "toy" we might not have the type of consoles we currently own. Even the controllers we use might not be the same without the ever vial dpad with buttons combo on a NES pad. A vital and interesting time to get into video games since I got to see them go from 8 bit pixels up to the millions of polygons in modern games. Since I'm going by year early on I won't have to many games to talk about but as my retrospective continues these lists are going to get out of hand. Also I'm playing these games on a toploader NES.

1986

So the fact I own only one game from 1986 isn't much of a surprise when you realize I wasn't even born yet. Commando is a port of a arcade game starting Super Joe who has been tasked with taking out a bunch of POW camps while rescuing prisoners. But really the goal is to shoot/grenade through 4 areas that repeat 3 times with them getting harder as you go along. The fact that they let me continue from where I left off after running out of lives is a slight surprise for this era of games. They also must have wanted to emulate the arcade game as much as possible since they put so many enemies on screen that they constantly flicker at all times. Also during my revisit to this game it re-spawned me in a instant death pit after losing a life.

1987

I don't remember playing this game much but it turns out to be my very first action RPG. I didn't keep any boxes or most of my instruction booklets from this era so I don't quite know what is going on in this game. Other than a knight is fighting a bunch of enemies while leveling up. From my peek into it again the collectible health upgrades didn't seem useful since using a password to continue the game after dying only gives the player 100 heath even if your max is 150. Unbalanced would be what I would call this game with many insta death pits that are easy to fall into along with enemies that like to hit you when coming into a room. As for the combat it just comes down to throwing swords into enemies till they die at least early on. The menu screen lead me to believe it was possible to collect a bunch of items but I didn't get around to collecting any.

I own a few unofficial TENGEN carts but this re-release of Gauntlet actually has the Nintendo seal of quality on it. Like the arcade release this game stars a band of 4 heroes that have a real big issue of losing health every second they are in a dungeon. So it is up to the player to guide them through it quickly picking up enough heath items and not getting hit by the enemies till they reach the deepest floor of the dungeon. This game controls well with minimal flickering for the amount of enemies that'll appear on screen at once.

Getting the exit of each level is simple enough although getting to them without getting hurt is quite a task especially how they lay out every level of the dungeon. Enemy spawn points required me to get hit enough that I needed to pick up all the food on each floor to not run out of life. Battling monsters is simple enough since every hero conveniently has a unlimited amount of swords/spears/arrows/axes to throw toward any threat. To bad I didn't even make it past the ninth level during my time with this game.

Looking at these early NES games they are all mostly arcade ports. Sure this is just my personal collection but it sure looks like most developers early on took the easy way out by porting existing arcade games. The Legend Of Kage follows a Ninja hero who must save a princess who has been captured by a evil shogun. Thus he must swing his sword wildly to block shots while throwing shurikens at his enemies. From the forest leading up the moat and then climbing the shogun's tower is the task our hero must undertake indefinitely. Like Donkey Kong the real goal of this game is to get the most points till you eventually run out of lives. Other than getting harder progressing to the 2nd act it also gives you some new music to listen too.

Evil space aliens have decided to be evil and it is up to space suit guy to save the day by infiltrating their base to blow up section Z. This is all I gleamed from the intro to this game although I'm sure the instruction booklet was more detailed compared to my description. This is one of the few side scrolling space shooters that allow the player to shoot in both directions. Which allowed me to deal with enemies easier although it did lead to me running into enemies if I was to far on the other side of the screen.

Another unique aspect of this game is that it is a maze. At the end of every level it gives you a choice that could lead forward or backward. Which also makes it kinda annoying since going back to a previous stage isn't that fun especially when you have to do it. A energy system replaces a lives system since running out of lives doesn't mean you can't continue. Running out of energy will send you all the way back to the start of the section of levels you are on. Beating the first real boss will give you a new continue point to start from. Along with all of this I stumbled upon a hidden teleport that hindered me by sending me back to the start.

So half the reason I even like Spy Hunter so much is because of the theme song. It may just be a 8-bit take of the Peter Gunn theme yet it is so good and it fits this game so well I always have a reason to put this game into my NES. Plus being a awesome spy car with a assortment of power ups given by a weapons van is fun too. I never quite mastered surviving for very long although I can make it to the first boat section. For a while I assumed it was possible to eventually get to the end of the road yet that isn't the goal of this game. It is all about getting the highest score possible. Which isn't something games focus on as much anymore but that was all I needed to play this game for hours in the past.