Blast from the past
I called over to my Mum's house for a cup of tea the last day and her car wasn't out the front where it usually is, so I had a quick check of the back door and the house was all locked up, and for some reason I took a stroll down to the big shed down the back. That's when it caught my eye. It was unmistakable, a flat mat grey box with two tones of grey and the unmistakable red writing saying NINTENDO Entertainment System TM.
This relic from my youth had long been forgotten, but when confronted with it memories flowed back one by one. That first turn at my friend's house up the road playing Duck Hunt with a real gun thinking that this was the coolest shit ever in the world ever! Finding out who Mario was and his cheeky brother Luigi who were always trying their damndest to rescue Priness Peach from Bowser. Soccer games with the worst graphics you could possibly imagine. They all sprung to mind and then the next question jumped into my mind.
What game was inside?
I marveled at the find momentarily and then the question sprung to mind, what game was inside or was any game inside? I opened up the front and intuitively remembered how to remove the game by pushing it down, so the spring mount would release the game and there she was in all her magnificence!
Super Mario Brothers 3. I'll say it again Super Mario Brothers 3. Eight different worlds to discover and clear and each becoming increasingly tougher as you progressed. The hours I played this game as a young fellow!
Now to be fair, if it was dry I'd be out playing soccer, hurling, Gaelic football, tennis, pitch and putt or horse jumping. Did I have a horse? Don't be ridiculous! I was the horse! We would pretend to be a horse and jockey and make fences in the garden to jump and do time trials. We were inventive young lads. Now, let me reel my self back in from that tangent. The point I was making was that it rained a lot in Galway, so on rainy days the computer often went on and a mainstay on my second computer My Amstrad CPC 464 was my first one. was Mario Brothers 3. So you can imagine my smile when I happened upon this accidentally.
All Parents are hypocrites!
Games are everywhere you see these days. Consoles like PlayStation 5s, handhelds like Switches, tablets, PCs, phones, laptops, TVs. They are literally everywhere and my three boys are all fond of screentime. My wife and I do our best to limit the screen time and especially game time, but then I think back to my own childhood and although games were in their infancy, I spent plenty of time playing them and I had battles with my own Mum around how much I could play, so I shouldn't be too surprised to see my nine year old trying to push the boundaries.
There was one distinct difference back in those days though and that was that games did not have memory cards and wouldn't for a while yet, so every time that you switched it on you would have to go right back to the very start to World 1, level 1 and try to battle through the 8 worlds which culminated in the lava world with cannon balls and fire balls which was always tough. Now let mw tell you something for nothing, having no way to save a checkpoint or similar along the way makes clearing a game very challenging.
Depending on the game and its level of difficulty you might need to set aside a fair chunk of hours if you have ambitions of clearing it or 'clocking it' as my wife would say. I remember one time in particular when I had a nice run at it and the shout came up the stairs:
Time to start finishing up there now Ablaze.
Not yet Mum
Came the reply, as I was on World 7 and still had loads of lives left and had a great chance to clear it, mind you it was getting late. Another twenty minutes passed and I had successfully scaled the heights of world 7 and had progressed to the darkness of world 8.
Come on now Ablaze. Time for bed.
Came the next call. Soon after came the veiled threat:
Don't make me come up as far as you Ablaze. Come on now!
I pleaded and got some more time, but I knew it was running out and fast and then the unthinkable happened. The TV, console and lights all went off for 1 second and on again. What was this wizardry? My Mum, the genius tripped the switch for the upstairs power and there ended my Super Mario Brothers 3 adventure - around 5 hours down the tubes!
So I guess I am a bit of a hypocrite limiting my own kids screen time on games, but it's definitely the right thing to do.
Did you have a Nintendo when you were younger?
What was your favorite game?
Do you still play computer games?
These photos are my own and were taken on my Samsung Smartphone.
Thanks as always for stopping by everyone.
Peace Out
I am getting back into retro games again and living the childhood days again, have been for years now but extra as the time passed.
I started with the Atari, but the SNES is my all time favourite, donkey kong country 2 being my favourite game alongside mortal kombat games and killer instinct.
Nice that you got to find this and remember back in the day!
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Ya there was something about the games back then, simple but brilliant, but our rose tinted glasses are tinged with nostalgia I guess.
Those were the days.
Memory cards were on of the biggest game changers of the video game world.
I still remember leaving the console running all night long to keep my progress and try to get all the way through.
Good times.
No way, good idea man. The memory cards were a serious game changer alright. Those early games are still iconic and class though. I guess it's nostalgia too though eh. Good times is right.
Jesus Christ that thing is suffering. Clean it!
🤣🤣 That thing is MIA for twenty five years!! It's been buried with loads of junk and turf and firewood in my parents shed, so I doubt it's salvageable... It would be some laugh to clean it and try to turn it on. Imagine if it worked, then it would be officially bullet proof!
Wow you got a nive surprise by finding your old console. My older sister had one of those.
Definitely @bethyjade, it was a great surprise 👍