If you're like me, then you're OLD.....scary old... not old like a 'wrinkly grandparent' or 'that old sweaty bag lady outside CVS' old, but 'mid life crisis' old. However, I have one great thing to be proud of being the age I am. I grew up in the 80's!!!!

One of the highlights of my childhood was that I was a part of the 'Video Game Generation'. I was a kid when the NES was released in 1985 and have gotten to experience the excitement of opening a Nintendo on Christmas day. Kids have had a ton of new systems to get excited about, but the original Nintendo was different. Yeah, it wasn't an Atari 2600 or a Coleco-vision or Pong which all preceded it, but it was HUGE! There was something magical about it. It changed my world.

Video Games being such a huge influence on my life, here's the inaugural entry in "THE4LIST Presents:" series.

It's THE4LIST'squared'... (formatting wont allow the proper numerical representation of 'squared'.. starting out shitty.. AWESOME)

OUR 4 MOST MEMORABLE

We're not saying these were the best games, but if you had an NES you probably had these, and if you didn't then.... well..... we don't know why you didn't. (We're gonna exclude any Super Mario Bros. games since they're pretty obvious. Since SMB came with the system, if you had an NES you had SMB.)

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Jul 19, 2014

MIKE TYSON'S PUNCH-OUT

Jul 19, 2014

While it started as just "Punch-out" (and to this day we still have new titles called "Punch-out") the game will forever be know to most as "Mike Tyson's Punch-Out"

There's not much to this game but we spent HOURS UPON HOURS memorizing the boxer's "tells". Each fighter had an eye brow raise or a shuffle when their defenses would be down. Glass Joe, Von Kaiser, Piston Honda, Don Flamenco, King hippo, Great Tiger, Bald Bull, Soda Popinski, Super Macho Man, Mr. Sandman and finally Tyson. I'll be honest I never beat Tyson. I couldn't figure him out, he winked or something.. I dunno. All I know is I went through the circuits 9,477 times and NEVER beat Tyson. I even played a few minutes ago, couldn't get past Bald Bull. It might have been the D-pad. I couldn't dodge after a while so just sat there getting the crap punched out of me.

Jul 19, 2014

CONTRA

Jul 19, 2014

While Gradius was the first to use it, Contra was the game that popularized the 'KONAMI CODE'. 'UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT B A START'. Believe it or not, it's still used today in hundreds and hundreds of games. (Check out this link for ALL the games). The game was impossible to beat without the code. There's also a different iteration that includes 'SELECT', however the 'SELECT' was only added to change '1 player' to '2 players'. So if you always played with a friend or sibling, you'd be more familiar with the 'SELECT' version. I've seen fights ensue over which code was correct.

Jul 19, 2014

CASTLEVANIA

Jul 19, 2014

Castlevania is one of the first horror games I played. The best part of this game was also the worst part. it was a looong game by 80's standards and you COULD NOT SAVE!!!! I distinctly recall playing this over my friends house for 5 hours, getting all the way to Dracula and having to leave for some awesome roller skating party. We had to pause the game and pick it up when we got back. Yeah..... didn't work, game froze and wouldn't un-pause. We were devastated. But we looked at each other and said "Oh well... looks like we have to play from the start again" and we did...we didn't make it back to Dracula but we didn't care.

Whips, axes, flying crosses, daggers, freezing time and holy water. The sub-weapons haven't changed much since then. The one thing I never didn't understand though.. "hearts" gave you sub-weapon points, and not health. Every other game was the opposite. They still haven't fixed it either. What's up with that Konami?

Jul 19, 2014

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA

Jul 19, 2014

Something has to be said about buying your first copy of 'The Legend of Zelda', opening it up and realizing the cartridge was GOLD. It was the first NES game that wasn't grey and for some reason that made the game 10 times more enjoyable. Just sliding this gold beauty into your NES was delicious.

The game was one of the longest made up to that date, and was one of the first NES games to have a "save" feature without using those retarded generic codes you had to write down (eg. DG5J TH6G 67HA 56YM NH7G N77K P4F6 TVC4). The top down dungeon exploration aspect is still used today in it's hand held versions. I sadly still get overly excited for each new Zelda game and pathetically can't wait till the new one is released sometime in 2015 for the Wii U.

Jul 19, 2014

THE 4 THAT MADE US CHUCK OUR CONTROLLER

These were shit. We thought they'd be good, we played them, we got pissed off, we threw our controllers, we kept playing anyway cuz we were stupid.

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Jul 19, 2014

GHOSTS 'N GOBLINS

Jul 19, 2014

Arguably one of the hardest and sexiest games on NES. It's successors were much more forgiving, but the original Ghosts 'n Goblins was notoriously tough. You got 2 hit points, and one was simply armor. If you HAD armor and got hit, you'd go back to running around in your underwear(sexy). Get hit again...you die. If you somehow made it to the end you then had to play through the entire game twice. TWICE!!. plus, THE 2ND TIME IS HARDER. That's just mean. Unlike Spy Hunter it CAN be done. I managed to pull it off twice in my life. I'm currently trying to do it for a third time but it's not going well. I'll let you know if I either come close or smash my T.V

Jul 19, 2014

BATTLETOADS

Jul 19, 2014

This game sucks. Battletoads was simply a rip off of 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' that only appeared in video game form (THANK GOD). These toads suck. Their game sucks. It was one of the most ridiculously difficult games ever made for the NES. If you ever owned this game you know the hover bike level. You basically had to memorize about 85 jumps and wall placements that just pop up on you This game sucks. If you're me, you just died 28 times then yelled "F&^K THIS SHIT!!!!" and threw the game out. This game sucks.

Jul 19, 2014

SPYHUNTER

Jul 19, 2014

At first glance this game was so cool. You got machine guns, smoke screens and oil slicks, and got to drive into the back of a semi "all 'Knight Rider' like". The first "999" seconds gave you unlimited lives.... only problem was that '999 seconds' was really only 43 seconds or something stupid. After that time ran out, YOU JUST DIE AND THE GAME IS OVER!!.

Drive too fast- you hit something and die- Game Over.

Drive too slow- you get bumped off the road and die- Game Over.

Drive at a medium pace and you get bumped off the road anyway and die, Game Over.. WTF!!!.

Yeah, sometimes you'd get an extra life, but you had to drive for 3 minutes for that to happen, and that rarely happened. SOMEtimes you'd make far enough to 'turn into a boat' but then you'd just die and have to start over. This is the game that got me grounded repeatedly for yelling "F$%K" at the damn T.V screen. I don't think anyone knows what the end of this game is like. Nobody made it that far.

Jul 19, 2014

DRAGON'S LAIR

Jul 19, 2014

The original arcade 'Dragon's Lair' was a good game..... Dragon's Lair for NES was a PIECE OF SHIT !!

The original 'Dragon's Lair' was an interactive cartoon. You watched a very memorable mini movie by legendary cartoonist Don Bluth ('The Fox and the Hound', 'The Black Cauldron', 'The Secret of NIMH') During the game, certain parts of the cartoon would flash ever so slightly. You'd have to move your joystick toward the flashes to progress. Miss it and you turn to bones. It was hard and there wasn't much to it at all in terms of controls, but it was fun and looked cool. You dumped your Mom's quarters in knowing you've memorized the flashes only to be wrong....but we loved it.

'Dragon's Lair' for the NES, however, was a rotten, foul, ugly, boring, hard, crappy, stupid piece of horrible horrible shit. While the arcade version was prided on its cartoon gameplay, the NES tried to replicate it with 8 bit graphics.... it didn't work. It looked terrible and played worse. You'd be lucky to get past the first screen. Just crossing a drawbridge resulted in you dying over and over and over. It made no sense whatsoever. This has to be the worst most frustrating game ever made for NES and I hated it. It's the herpes of NES games. Actually...if YOU got herpes, syphilis and gonorrhea all at the same time, it would still be better than playing this shitty game.

Jul 19, 2014

ACCESSORIES

We all had accessories. Some were good , most sucked shit. Here are some

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Jul 19, 2014

R.O.B. THE ROBOT

Jul 19, 2014

Gimmicks at their finest. This was a weird accessory that would act as a second player. All it did was pick things up and put them down. It used the same light sensor technology as the zapper but was 10,000 times less fun.

It worked with only TWO games.. Gyromite and Stack-up.... THATS IT! It was a rip-off but I didn't tell my parents that when they I made them buy me one. I eventually threw it out once I hit puberty. I did see one for sale on Ebay in the last few years for $15,000. Currently they're only worth $200 or less. Still a rip off 30 years later

Jul 19, 2014

NES ADVANTAGE

Jul 19, 2014

When the NES was released it came with the new D pad controller. An alternative to joysticks that proved successful in Nintendo's 1982 handheld 'Donkey Kong' release. Most loved the D-Pad but some still clamored for a true arcade style joystick, Thus, Nintendo gave us the NES Advantage. Some games played better on it, others not so much. What it did do best was give the user 'Slow-Mo' and 'Turbo' features. Basically "Slow-Mo' just incorporated repeatedly hitting 'pause' electronically, while 'turbo' did the same for the A or B buttons. Instead of hitting them with lightning speed, the controller did it for you.

Most of these ended up broken. Their size made them more prone to taking damage from being chucked at the wall after trying to use a different controller for Spy Hunter.

Jul 19, 2014

ZAPPER

Jul 19, 2014

Quite possible one of the coolest accessories for any video game system. The Zapper or 'Light Gun" used light sensing technology to interpret its position on the screen when pointed at a television. It was amazingly accurate. It didn't work with every game but the games made for it were all worth playing... mostly. Games like 'Duck Hunt' and 'Gumshoe' did an excellent job of turning every kid into a murdering, gun carrying psychopath (in the virtual sense). This was the must have accessory for any NES owner, plus doubled as a nifty Halloween costume accessory if needed.

Jul 19, 2014

THE POWER GLOVE

Jul 19, 2014

I never owned a Power Glove. I'm not upset with that.

How did it work? I guess you can program certain actions to represent button presses. Like 'giving the finger' would equate to pressing 'B'. Plus it was a pre-cursor to Nintendo's ever popular Wii-mote (oddly enough). You would set up infrared sensors on top of your T.V. for motion tracking... but it never worked. To quote the 'Angry Gamer' when it comes to the Power Glove "It's easier to do a handstand while taking a shit".(You can watch the Angry Gamer get pissed at it here) . The Power Glove sucked and was mainly owned by rich kids looking to brag, but it helped spot the douche bags.

Jul 19, 2014

OTHER STUFF

The NES was known for more than gaming. Here are a few aspects of the NES that most will not forget.

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Jul 19, 2014

BLOW JOBS

Jul 19, 2014

Everyone did it... Blowing into the cartridges. You would shove 'Metroid' in a little too hard, press power, and get nothing but a black or grey screen. You took it out, gave it a blow, and presto! Instant fix!. We all just assumed it was dust. To this day we all assumed it actually worked, but it really didn't do anything. The act of taking the cartridge out and putting back in is what would make better contacts once the game was pressed "down". This is what fixed the games, not blowing.

Another option was putting the cartridge "almost" all the way in before pressing it 'down'. This option was only know by the most knowledgeable NES owners. This knowledge was useless in 'life' however.

Jul 19, 2014

PASSCODES

Jul 19, 2014

We all know the early days of NES games without save points. You played a game and either beat it in one sitting, or didn't. Then, one day, came PASSCODES.... some were easy to remember or write down.. others, like the picture above, were like Advanced Trigonometry.

After a while most found that each NES game sleeve contained a copy of a game plus 5 sheets of folder paper covered in passcodes. This is how life was for long few years.

Jul 19, 2014

THE WIZARD

Jul 19, 2014

The only major motion picture I can think of that not only revolved around a video game system (NES), but also marketed a 'soon to be released video game': 'Super Mario Bros. 3' (It even showcased 'The Power Glove')

Every kid who saw this movie wanted a shot to compete in "Video Armageddon"- Nintendo's video game championships.

The movie managed to do absolutely nothing for the careers of Luke Edwards and Jenny Lewis but did shoot Fred Savage to semi- mediocre stardom, Christian Slater and Beau Bridges got snubbed for best supporting actor nominations and an uncredited Tobey McGuire got to show off a very exceptional kid mullet. What more could you ask for in a movie? 3 thumbs up

Jul 19, 2014

MASCOTS

Jul 19, 2014

The list of Nintendo mascots is loooong. Longer than any video game maker out there.

Mario, Luigi, Link, Zelda, Samus, Fox McCloud (Star Fox), Donkey Kong, Kirby, Yoshi, Princess Peach, Pit (Kid Icarus), Toad....the list goes on and on. They have SO many mascots they created a video game series to showcase them all....'Super Smash Bros.'

the 'Super Smash Bros.' series houses every Nintendo mascot ever created plus some. They even started branching out to other game creators for licensing of other mascots from Atari, Sega, Sony and Microsoft. Pick up Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U later this year. It shouldn't suck.

Jul 19, 2014

OUR 4 MOST MEMORABLE

THE 4 THAT MADE US CHUCK OUR CONTROLLER

ACCESSORIES

OTHER STUFF

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