Top 5 NES games?

[Berzerk]

I do not beleive nobody has done this yet so here goes:-

1.Castlevania
2.Elite
3.Donkey Kong Classics
4.Digger
5.Gimmick! (Mr Gimmick)

After that its a selection of mostly arcade conversions like Ghost`n`Goblins,Paperboy,Marble MAdness,etc

[final kaoss]

My top 5 nes games would definitely be

1. Faxanadu
2. Super Mario Bros 3
3. Dragon Warrior
4. Final Fantasy
5. Battletoads

Marble Madness is alright & I faintly remember snake rattle & roll which was pretty fun back then. Gauntlet 2 was ok but it was way too repetitive but pretty fun for 2-4 people.

[Berzerk]

Snake rattle and roll is a good game and quite unusual,with so many simular games around back then to be different or unusual was a good thing,i think that why the game is often fondly remembered.

[imemualujaa]

Top 5 NES Games of All Time

Whether you’re an avid gamer or not, you have to admit that at one time in your life you played the classic Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The video game console was introduced in 1986. The system was headlined with Super Mario Bros. and some releases included Duck Hunt. What made this system revolutionary was the use of the zapper that came with it. Ducks would fly from the field and you could shoot them down. If for some reason you missed one of the ducks the dog in the game would stand up and start laughing at you. I hated that dog for laughing at my crappy shooting, but that would all change when taking down the ducks. The dog would then stand up and smile while holding them. I suppose the laughing made me try harder but still! The NES was an excellent gaming console and I still play it to this day. Last night I played a couple games with my 7 year old and like any NES game I had to blow on it a few times in order for it to work. Despite the cons of the system it all turned out funny because everyone used to do the same thing to make it work. Even if the games were dirty we all knew not to fall for the cleaning kit because all you had to do was clean it with rubbing alcohol and a couple Q-tips. The cleaning kit was expensive and was a way to take money from those who didn’t know the tricks. There were many games for the NES that are considered classics but the following games are my top 5 of all time.
5. Mike Tyson’s Punchout!
Coming in at #5 is Mike Tyson’s Punchout! I have this game on my iPhone and I play it every now and then but back when I was younger I played this game for hours. In this game you play a tiny boxer named Little Mac who is working his way up the ranks to fight in the dream bout against Iron Mike Tyson. In the original Punchout! the dream bout is fought against Mr. Dream but with all the popularity of Tyson, he was added as the final opponent. The game had some memorable characters and each one had a weakness that made them easy to defeat. One boxer that I thought was just as hard as Tyson was Super Macho Man. This fool was hard to beat and his special move called the “Super Spin Punch” was killer. There were two versions of this and the second was devastating because he would simply spin until it was too hard to dodge but I did it. I was able to do this one time when I played this game along with my cousins. It was my claim to fame with them since they were much older than I and they couldn’t do it but I did and I will never forget it. Mike Tyson was always a challenge for me because of his quickness. You always had to watch for his wink or that split second flash to get a punch in but that’s what made the game fun. If you missed your shot he’d knock you out with one punch. If you want to take a crack at him and don’t want to work your way up the ranks use the following code at the title screen (007 373 5963). It’s been said that he was designed to never lose but I witnessed his demise by a cousin of mine. Others have defeated him and you can see it here by someone who posted a video on YouTube.
4. Contra
The number 4 pick of my top 5 of all time is Contra. Everyone knows Contra! I don’t care who you are but if you were gaming it up when it came out then you definitely know Contra. What was awesome about this game was that two people could play at the same time and cause massive destruction. The characters were able to use different guns but you had to shoot in the air at flying pods in order to make them drop the power-ups. There was a downfall to the game where if one player fell behind the other would be stuck and it sucked because you would more than likely end up dead. This sucked even more because you only had a certain amount of lives and continues. With one shot your character would be dead so the lives would go quickly. This made for a hard and challenging game but there was something that could be done about this. Thanks to Konami, the company that made the game, they included what’s known as “The Konami Code”. If you entered up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B,A at the title screen, you would gain 30 lives. It was hard to beat the game with minimal lives but with that code one could make it to the end, conquer it, and bask in the glory of defeating Contra.






3. Ninja Gaiden
Coming in at #3 is Ninja Gaiden. This was the game to have and play when it came out. The game was very challenging and you needed to have some ninja skills of your own. What I mean by this is that your fingers had to be quick on the gamepad or you were bound to get hit by something and jump back. This was fine when on a flat surface but if you were jumping from platform to platform you were doomed. With that said there were sections where you would have to cling onto a wall and jump up by pressing back, the jump button, and then forward in order to scoot your way up. It sounds complicated but it was pretty easy once you got the hang of it. I would say that it was the “Haduken” of that era. The game also had other elements that made it superb. There were moments where your character would fall off a cliff and you would fall from the sky and get a second chance at life. Those were the best and the storyline was good too. The introduction of the game is classic and it gets you pumped. After watching the intro you want nothing but to avenge your father’s death. Well, at least I did because I dug the game so much.


2. Mega Man 2
The year was 1988. I had just finished watching some saturday morning cartoons and my parents said they were going to take me to Mr. Music’s, the local video store, to rent a couple movies and NES games. I was 7 years old and I was stoked! We ended up renting movies and one game but that one game turned out to be epic. I didn’t have Nintendo Power Magazine at that time so I had no idea what Megan Man was let alone that there was a sequel. When I started it I began to read the storyline in the intro of the game. The music starts out slow but builds up and fast. Its ends with the sight of the hero character standing like a bad ass with his hair waving in the air. I have included a video of the intro because my words don’t do it justice. You play as Mega Man, a robot that has sworn to fight against the evil robots of Dr. Wiley with the help of his creator Dr. Light. There are 8 different robots to defeat before getting to Wiley’s castle and out of all the Mega Man games out there, part 2 has the best music. I love this game and it was hard to put it at number 2 but I had to do it.


1. Super Mario Bros. 3
Now for the number 1 of my top 5 games of all time! Out of all the games I have played Super Mario Bros. 3 is my top pick. This game was such a big deal when it came out it was only revealed in a movie before any commercials hit television. The movie was called, “The Wizard”. It was about three kids, one of which is a genius gamer, who runaway from home and hitchhike their way to the ultimate video game tournament. Along they way they meet another kid named Lucas who is also headed to the competition. This was one of the first times I ever saw the Power Glove in action while playing Rad Racer. Seeing the games accessories were awesome and to be honest the whole movie was pretty much a 2 hour commercial for the NES. Once the genius gamer Jimmy and Lucas make it to the finals with another kid, it is announced that the final game will be a game that no one has ever played or set eyes on. The final game is none other than Super Mario Bros. 3. I remember my jaw dropping as I watched them play this in the movie. After the movie premiered in theaters, the commercials began to roll out. When I finally got my hands on that game I played it for hours and discovered many secrets. I played and played until I finally defeated Bowser. It was epic and to this day I still remember all the secrets. Just last night my 7 year old and I were playing it and he was amazed at what I was doing. These are my top 5 NES games of all time and I know what you’re thinking. What about The Legend of Zelda? What about, Castlevania, Tecmo Bowl, Double Dragon, and on and on and on? I know there are many epic NES games out there but this is my list. These are the ones I remember most. Shoot me a comment and let me know what your top 5 are. Happy gaming folks!

[imemualujaa]

Monday, 28 September 2009

• The Top 5 NES Games
  
  
  
  
  
  I never owned an NES, but through the magic of friends owning the system, games getting ported to new systems (thank you, Super Mario All-Stars!) and emulators (which HL does not endorse, but come on, they're pretty awesome), I've built up a decent amount of liking for the system. Of course, though, context is everything. I imagine -- since I didn't grow up with the system -- that I wouldn't be a great judge of which games are the best of the best.
  
  Thankfully, sites like GameStats have a metric for user ratings of games. The voice of the people, if you will! For GameStats, that would be the Game Popularity Meter, or GPM, and generally, I think they did well on the top few games. Their top five NES games:
  
  
  5. Final Fantasy
  
  
  
  
  
  It wouldn't be a Top 5 or Top 10 list for games without a Final Fantasy game, right down to the original. I can't speak for this game in particular, but it's hard to argue against a game and series so influential to the RPG genre. And so long-lasting. The fact this series is called "Final" Fantasy is one of the biggest ironies in the history of gaming.
  
  
  4. Metal Gear
  
  
  
  
  
  So-ri-ddo Su-ne-ku! Metal Gear was the most surprising entry in the top five for me; I wasn't aware the original itself had that much of a following. Although maybe the MGS fanboys just inflated the ranking. In any event, you gotta holla at a playa when you see him in the street. According to the great resource that is Wikipedia, Metal Gear has a Guinness World Record for being the first ever stealth video game.
  
  
  3. Super Mario Bros. 3
  2. Super Mario Bros.
  
  
  
  
  
  I disagree with neither being on the list, but can't rationalize SMB1 being above SMB3, no matter how small the margin is. SMB3 had vastly more developed worlds, cooler power-ups, and a far sicker final world than anything possessed in the original. Those airships gave me absolute fits!
  
  
  1. The Legend of Zelda
  
  
  
  
  
  Although I've completed Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, my Zelda fandom is incomplete because I've never beaten the original, and it's a damn shame. Series like the Zelda games are one of the reasons I regret nothing about growing up with Nintendo.
  
  
  
  Unfortunately, the rest of the GameStats GPM ratings go a little haywire after the top 10. MGS fanboys are OK, but damn, their users love Dragon Ball-Z. And what is up with not one Mega Man game even cracking the top 20? That's straight up criminal.
  
  Do you agree with GamesStats' Top 5 in terms of popularity? Any glaring omissions?
  
  
  

[imemualujaa]

Trox's Top 5 NES Games!

WHAT IT DO?! Alright now just settle down. Before you guys start on me for providing you with next to nothing in the way of content for about the last week or so..be sure to keep a couple of things in mind.

1.) I was sick for a few days...the last thing you probably want to do when you're under the weather is sit in front of a screen and try to be funny.

2.) A dear friend of mine got married this past weekend, so the crew here at TroxTalk was a little tied up with visiting old friends, the big bachelor party (I might do a post on it if anyone can accurately recall what took place), and then of course, the wedding itself. Congratulations Mr.and Mrs. Meier!!

3.) Traditional sabbaticals generally last anywhere from 2 months to 1 year. You guys got off light and only had to live without me for a short time. You're welcome.

So there are my poor excuse for keeping you chomping at the bit for a few days. Don't worry there are plenty of more exciting lists on the horizon....Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming. Sort of. Did anyone check out the Robocop Movie Tracks episode I did with the guys over at The Best Podcast? Hopefully, I've managed to rake in a few new listeners for them, and if I have, you know that they close the show every week with a segment called the Top 5. This past Friday TBC's Top 5 topic was "Top 5 Games for the Nintendo Entertainment System." My brain instantly went 8-bit and I began to recall some of the greatest moments from my early nerdom.
One thing I noticed is that, because great minds think alike, Dave and Phinny rarely have an opinion that differs from mine during their weekly Top 5 segment. After talking with them, we decided it might be fun to conduct a little experiment. They are going to give me their Top 5 topics in advance for the next few Fridays. (At this point it looks like they will all be somehow "old school video game" related.) What we are going to do is, without any correspondence between TroxTalk.com and The Best Podcast, reveal our respective Top 5 lists at the same time on each topic. TBC's list will be one their podcast and mine will be here on the blog. We are very aware that this is a shameless cross-promotion, but from what I gather, many of their listeners are my readers and vice-versa anyway. We may as well have some fun with it.
Just so you kids have a feel for how this is going to work, The Best Podcast list of the Top 5 NES games can be heard here...Episode 26: One Giant Cash Grab

The Best Cast Top 5 NES Games

5. Duck Tales
4. Mike Tyson's Punch Out
3. Tecmo Super Bowl
2. The Legend of Zelda
1. Super Mario Bros. 3

That was their list and it wasn't bad. This time around I've already heard what they had to say. This Friday it looks like we're going to do the Top 5 SEGA Genesis games, and I won't have any prior knowledge of Dave and Phinny's picks, so there's a chance some of the games we select will be the same... For this countdown I purposely selected a totally different group of NES games. Lets do this.

TROX'S TOP 5 GAMES FOR THE NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM:
#5

I'm kicking off the countdown with somewhat of a sentimental pick for me. I bought my very first video game console the Nintendo Entertainment System using birthday money, and a collection of stolen bills from my mother’s purse at the age of 6. (To a 6 year old, video games were like meth. Any kid would beg or steal to get their hands on some.) I could only afford this base model NES which included Super Mario Bros., a game I actually hated at the time because “my man kept jumping in the dumb holes” This is a problem which would later re-manifest itself in my late teens and early 20s. Maybe we’ll discuss that in another post. My Gram felt sorry for me having saved all this money all by myself…errrr….and only being able to afford a single shitty game to go with it, so she forked out the dough for me to choose a second game. I picked Mega Man 3 based on the only tried and true selection method for a child. The box art was fantastic! I should note that a young boy struggling with the complications of Super Mario Bros. has absolutely NO business in the world of Mega Man 3.
There are still levels on this one which I find almost impossible without cheat codes. I eventually grew to love both Mega Man 3 and the first Super Mario Bros. game out of necessity. It was either learn to like these tough games I had and get good at them, or have it turn into another situation like the puppy, the goldfish, the hamster, and the turtle… In short, Gram would see me showing no interest, and kill my NES. (Just joking, but I knew if I didn’t play Mega Man 3, she wouldn’t by me anymore games, and Christmas was coming up.)

#4

I can't think about Excitebike without referencing a famous scene from the movie Lucky Number Slevin. It went something like this...

Mr. Goodkat: There was a time.
Nick: [groggily looks at his watch] 4:35.
Mr. Goodkat: You misunderstood. I wasn't asking for the time, I was just saying... there was a time.
Nick: There was a time?
Mr. Goodkat: Mmm-hmm. Take Brown Sugar back there, for example. She's pretty fuckin' foxy, right?
[indicates old lady asleep in next row of seats]
Nick: [incredulous] She's 70.
Mr. Goodkat: If she's a day. But there was a time.

By today's standards of Call of Duty and Portal 2, Excitebike isn't much to write home about. It's hard to believe that during it's prime back in 1985 it was completely cutting edge. 4 independent racers could be on the screen at once, the sound (while annoying today) actually gave you a sort of motocross feel, and it's the first game I can recall with a custom map creator. OH YEA! AND..IT WAS FREAKING FUN!! I used to spend hours with my friends overheating and crashing into each other on purpose. Sadly, when I revisited this game (yep, still got it) for this countdown, I realized an awful truth..Excitebike has almost zero staying power. To try to play it now, it may as well be called "Monotonous-boring-as-shit-bike". I consider making this game my fourth pick an homage to the forgotten.. Many of these throwback titles we have been talking about have withstood the test of time, and if you pop them in you could still have a blast playing them through. This unfortunately is not the case for Excitebike...But there was a time...

#3

Kung Fu is the O.G. of the fighting game genre. It was one of the earliest releases on the NES and it marked the birth of one of the most static and ironclad fixtures in the entire video game universe. VIOLENCE. The first time I mashed the red B button on my NES controller, heard that little *pewt* sound made by Thomas, and put one of those 8-bit size 10 sandals upside a baddies head I was HOOKED. This was a game that I borrowed from a friend on 3 separate occasions, and the third time I didn't bother returning it. (I was a stealin' ass scandalous little kid.) In Japan, Kung Fu was titled Spartan X and it was based off of a Jackie Chan movie called Wheels on Meals. In America, it paved the way for virtually every "kick ass and save your woman" game to come along since..In some ways, without Kung Fu, there is no Mortal Kombat. That's why Kung Fu gets my #3 slot, and these other great games do not.

#2

If you are a regular here on TroxTalk you are fairly certain of one thing by this point. I love me some sports. I'll watch just about anything on ESPN apart from poker and Nascar. I love Reds baseball, Bengals football, and Red Wings hockey! For me, part of being a huge sports nut and a part time video game geek is that I play a TON of sports games. I've had every Madden Football game since about 1991.. (Back then it wasn't Madden NFL, it was called 'John Madden Football') However, the very first sports video game I ever played was Blades of Steel. It had it all. The roar of the 8-bit crowd, the horn sounding loudly when you score a goal, and fighting..That's right. FIGHTING! I went back and played a game of Blades not too long ago, and I'm here to tell you, it's still pretty bad-ass. To this day when I pop open the latest title from 2kSports or EA, I am just chasing the dragon in search of that high I felt playing Blades of Steel in my bottom bunk (I was one of those spoiled kids who had bunk beds even though there was just one of me at the time).

Here are a couple of other notable NES sports games that I would beat you at...





#1

Contra, at it's core, is the greatest NES game of all time. It was one of the first times a video game was able to immerse you deep inside what felt like an actual adventure. It took the muscles and guns of a 1980s action movie and put them right in the palm of your hand. It was revolutionary because every kid between the ages of about 5 and 80 wanted to be a hero, and to that point, all you could really do is save a frog from getting hit by cars, or help a yellow circle escape from a buncha rainbow colored sheets with holes in them, or try to run down some bratty chick from a keg tossing monkey on top of a ladder...You get my drift. I feel like just about every big game that hits retailers nowadays is a shooter, but back then, Contra was THE shooter. And it was one of the only games on the market to offer 2-D side-scrolling levels along with bottom-up 3-D levels which were the earliest stages of the modern first person shooter. Think about that the next time you play Halo or Fallout: New Vegas. Yes, Contra made you feel like a soldier..at least until you realized how tough the game actually was. In fact, it's still challenging even after all these years, but at least everyone, including people who never played the game, no the secret to Contra's demise...

↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A start

I know that this has been a pretty long post, but I needed to knock some of the rust off. Thanks for sticking with it and as always I'd love to get your thoughts. Maybe you can send me your top 5 or you can cuss me because you strongly disagree with mine. Either way I'd love to hear from you @troxtalk on twitter or you can just email me.. . Thanks again to the dudes from The Best Podcast! If everyone who ever played Nintendo were to make their own top 5 list, I bet know 2 people would give the same answers, and that's why this little project with TBC is gonna be so much fun. Stay tuned for Friday when we see how my Top 5 SEGA Genesis countdown matches up to theirs. I wonder if anything will overlap? Deuces.


P.S. I've also decided to include a "Hipster Pick" at the bottom of each Top 5. You know, the obligatory "this game wasn't very mainstream, so you probably haven't ever heard of it" act. The NES Hipster Pick is a no-brainer. If you haven't played Crash-N-The Boys Street Challenge, you should check it out. You can thank me later.

[Saturn]

Based on my age, i would say:
1. Super Mario Bros.
2. Jurassic Park
3. Castelvania
4. Snow Bros
5. Contra

[Ashtar]

For me, definitely the best game is Castlevania. And actually now I play online casino on the website and I'm having a lot of fun with it. In addition, if you play correctly, you can earn quite a bit of money.

[RemingtonBailey]

Dragon Warrior
Final Fantasy
Battletoads