16 replies to this topic

[C.C. Z28]

I've been going through a lot of comics at work. The latest round is mostly Bronze Age. I never planned on being a comic dealer; it just wound up that way due to buying one store that sold comics on the side and the fact that almost noone is selling their video games during COVID-19. What strikes me about it is that the ads in the comic books turn to nearly 100% NES games and NES-related products in late 1987 besides ads for other comics or comic stores/events. Before the ads were for all sorts of things; candy (lots of Gumby and Pokey pushing Brach's candy), selling products door-to-door, joke store stuff like joy buzzers and fake ice cubes with flies in them, musical instruments, toys, junk food and so forth.

 

That made me start thinking about how a lot of people over target NES age hated the NES as just another dumb consumer product that took over the media especially from '88 through '91. Not necessarily parents; I'm talking about people who were over 15 at the time. There was such a consumer push for the NES from toy stores to cartoons to advertising to movies that people who weren't into it descended into sarcasm. It didn't help that the '90s were hitting and sarcasm was becoming de regular. Also people noticed that middle schoolers were getting fat all of a sudden.

 

I'm not sure this is well-known, but Kurt Cobain went out and spent over $1000 on and NES and accessories then smashed them onstage because he thought the whole thing was stupid and overly-consumerist. Krist Novoselic and maybe Dave Grohl (maybe Chad Channing was playing drums still) were like "We didn't have that much money yet as a band". Also smashing an NES probably wasn't that visually appealing considering the Tonka-like construction of the NES and the Game Paks. It's not like at the end of the show when he would smash some junk Xmas guitar that he got for $40 at a pawn shop two blocks down the street from the venue before the show.

 

It wasn't so much that maybe these people were anti-Atari or against arcades, but the NES and its near-total takeover of male youth culture and spending really annoyed them. Maybe its the same as the way car people look at crossover SUVs today; I don't know.

[Jace]

This is interesting. I was under 10 during the run of the NES but I couldn't have imagined life without it. It's kinda hard to really absorb what you're getting at since at the time I actually was in the target demographic for the thing, but I didn't know anything about stuff like that until I was in like 10th grade. But I will say that at some point over the past 20 years or so of decent NES emulation, I've probably dabbled in like 80% of the library and outside of the nostalgia lens I can't say that I feel there are a ton of gems that hold up. I guess the very idea of video games as having the potential for something other than consumerist "amusement" (like carnival games) was still super fresh.

[C.C. Z28]

Oh, I was the target demo of the NES and it is still my favorite system. And I didn't personally know anyone who hated it at the time outside of maybe some parents but they never said much. And I'd put the NES games at only 60% crap. Not enough crappy Western-developed realism-based simulators or TV-and-movie based-games like SNES through PS2 had for the percentage to be higher.

[Jace]

Not enough crappy Western-developed realism-based simulators

Definitely glad I never experienced any of that growing up. Although scores of YouTube comments would oppose this statement, I don't envy the people who had to grow up with the C64 as their major console (I've grown to love the SID on its own merits but in my experience it doesn't seem like most of the best SID music was designed for commercial games, and the bubbly Euro-style arps in a lot of Euro-centric chipmusic still grates me even though I've kinda gotten used to it over the years.)

 

However,

 

TV-and-movie based-games

I definitely feel like the NES was plenty inundated with these. Were any of them good?

[C.C. Z28]

Capcom Disney games were usually at least OK if not great. Western-developed ones like Acclaim and LJN were not for the most part.

[C.C. Z28]

Also I'm excluding Rare from the Western development stigma.

[mooniniteG]

Thank you thread for giving me another reason to not like Nirvana.

[Jace]

Capcom Disney games were usually at least OK if not great. Western-developed ones like Acclaim and LJN were not for the most part.

 

Oh yeah I definitely remember enjoying some of the 16-bit Disney games. In particular it seems like people are really keen on the Aladdin game in hindsight. I had Mickey Mania for Genesis as a kid and busted it out last year for old time's sake/quarantine boredom and I was still super-wowed by the graphics, and the gameplay is fun although I had to look up like, what to actually do in some sections.

 

Mickey's Mousecapade can go to hell though.

[mooniniteG]

I've said it before (probably in the controversial game opinion thread), but the Genesis Aladdin is not a good game and the SNES one is only okay. The 8-bit Sega Master System game was actually fun and punches above its weight.

[Jace]

I played a lot of DuckTales as a kid but I don't really think it holds up that great. I feel like it's an   o   k   platformer with really annoying sound effects (sort of ironic considering how much people seem to like the music Moon theme.)
 
I actually liked Aladdin for Genesis as a kid and somehow even beat it, but I haven't played it since the 90s.
 
I guess some people seem to like the 16-bit Lion King?
 
NES Disney games that weren't released on 16-bit consoles (other than DuckTales and Mickey Mousecapade):

Adventures in the Magic Kingdom
Beauty and the Beast
Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers
Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers 2
Darkwing Duck
Dick Tracy*
DuckTales 2
The Little Mermaid
The Rocketeer*
TaleSpin
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?*

[*counting these because the films were Disney-owned]

Sorry I'm not trying to make this the Disney games thread, but I guess it's relevant to the overall discussion of the NES being overly consumerist or for some people considered kind of throwaway. Were any of the above any good? I remember thinking the first Chip 'n Dale was okay but I haven't played it since I was a kid and I never owned it. I remember being almost tearfully frustrated with Roger Rabbit but still enjoying just driving around in Toon Town.

[streifig]

These are good: 
 

Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers
Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers 2
Darkwing Duck
DuckTales 2
The Little Mermaid
TaleSpin

[Smeg]

DuckTales fucking rules

[juef]

I very much liked Chip n' Dale 1, Duck Tales, and to a lesser extent Adventures in the Magic Kingdom. I also had the same experience as you did with Roger Rabbit, maybe a bit worse since I couldn't read English back then, let alone figure out the puns to save my life!

[C.C. Z28]

Western development ruined Roger Rabbit with poor control.

 

The West was good at making arcade games. I don't know why they crapped out on NES. I think part of it was always trying to "rethink control" "innovate" and "revolutionize" whereas Japan is more into refinement.

[Jace]

Yeah but the not-so-wild West sure did stick with the terrible big-joystick-with-one-button controller design for a long time, although I guess I can't blame them really because "big ol' joystick" was the rule of the day for most arcade cabs.