Top 5 Games on the NES

All I can say is I can't believe we didn't think of this before. So here's to all the wasted hours of my youth spent with the Nintendo Entertainment System!

Dan's Top 5:

1. Super Mario Bros. 3 - By far the best game in the entire system's history. It's hard to take a side-scrolling game - much less a Mario game - to a new level, but SMB 3 did it. This game was so huge, it required a major motion picture to unveil it. Of course, a more thorough review of both the game and the movie can be found courtesy of James Rolfe, the Angry Video Game Nerd.

2. Dragon Warrior - I really need to thank this game for saving me from what could have been an unhealthy obsession with the Final Fantasy series. I got the game free somehow - I seem to remember it being associated with my subscription to Nintendo Power magazine. Anyway, this game is the entire reason I've ever touched any subsequent RPG, and why I've never been surprised that I need to keep walking around outside to level up.

3. Marble Madness - The soundtrack to this game is burned into my memory. Really, it's a remarkably simple game taken from the arcade where you steer a marble towards a goal, trying to avoid both obstacles and the effects of physics. Like the board game Othello, it takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to master. Unlike Othello, this game will make your eyes bleed.

4. Battletoads - It seems that there might actually be mixed opinion on Battletoads. If so, then that's bullshit. Battletoads was such a unique idea that was so well-executed that it really breathed new life into the side-scrolling action genre later on in the platform's lifetime. In essence, it was the Vectorman of the NES. Know how much I loved Battletoads? I still remember that it was the cover-page game in issue #25 of Nintendo Power. And no, I didn't look that up.

5. Rampage - A giant lizard and a giant ape climbing and destroying buildings. That's it. This game is awesome enough that I don't need to write any more than that.

Honorable mention: Bases Loaded 2: Extra Innings, Dr. Mario, Duck Hunt, TMNT 2: The Arcade Game

Ryan's Top 5:

Surprisingly, I think this brought up more painful memories than happy ones. (I refuse to consider those fucking asshole crooks in Home Alone, a game I didn't beat until I had an emulator.)

Note: I was one of the rare kids who never owned MegaMan, Zelda, or Metroid. I think there's a support group now.

1. Super Mario Bros. 3 - I'm sorry, this is #1, period, on anyone's list. The day my mom bought me this game remains one of my most powerful childhood memories. If I spent one-tenth of the time and energy I gave this game on something more worthwhile, we'd probably have a cure for cancer by now. My bad, folks.

2. Castlevania - I suppose I spent more time watching my dad play this game than actually playing it, but that's like saying I spent more time on War and Peace than on Les Miserables. (Read it again folks, the weirdest analogy ever.) Anyway, this game scared me when I was a kid in the same way that rated-R movies did; it left me wanting more, more, more. If we ever go vampire-hunting, I'll be the one smashing candelabras and scouring the shards for hearts.

3. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 - The first game in the series reminds me of that riddle about the boulder; can God create a game so hard that even He can't beat it? Anyway, it didn't dampen my enthusiasm for all things Turtle (up to and including this), so when game #2 came out, a little more light started shining in my world.

4. Duck Tales - If you never played this game, then you're probably puzzled by its presence in a Top 5 list. If you played this game, you know. You know.

5. Mike Tyson's Punch Out - It was this or Jaws. This game I easily watched more than I played, at my friend's house with every kid in the neighborhood. Who cares? I remember specific bouts with King Hippo or Don Flamenco better than any real-life boxing match. And hey, why has no one ever made a remake of this game?

Honorable mention: Jaws (probably my #6), Super Mario Bros 1, Tecmo Bowl (Joe Montana 94 was the first football game I was obsessed with), Tetris (more of a gameboy thing), Double Dragon 2, Ninja Gaiden (damn it, I did the whole list and left out Ninja Gaiden, damn it, damn it, damn it, all right, let's pretend this didn't happen, move along, move along...), Duck Hunt, Bubble Bobble, Marble Madness, NOT HOME ALONE.

Tim's Top 5:
Because my parents loved us, they didn't have to give my brother or myself a NES until we were almost too old to enjoy it. Emphasis on almost. Thus, we could stop making friends with people based on the available gaming options they had. However, it also shows because I owned...four of the games that get mentioned on the list at all (SMB3, Super Off Road, NES Play Action, Darkwing Duck, Baseball Stars) -- the rest were rentals, so my love for them was developed quickly, but has lasted to this day. I also didn't have any Zelda games (good for me, I've since determined), Metroid, Tecmo Bowl...

1. Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves - I have endorsed this game to everyone I know that I have ever so much as mentioned a Nintendo game to. Basically, four people. I didn't own the game, but I rented it, and that was enough to make me want to play it forever...but then my Nintendo died. The best thing about it was that you could play as multiple characters, including Azeem, which is the closest you'll ever get to being Morgan Freeman. It gives you multiple perspectives (who can forget melee mode?), and you kept adding people to your crew, including Duncan, who is blind. It mixes RPG elements with the actual gameplay. If you never played it, you can see it on this guy's Youtube review, although he hates the game. http://spoonyexperiment.com/games/RobinHood/

2. Super Mario Bros. 3 - I was actually the asshole who enjoyed Super Mario Bros. 2, but I was outvoted 1-1 by my brother, so we never actually owned it. This game just had a lot of great stuff in it. The graphics were a huge improvement on anything we'd seen from Nintendo, it was in the awesome movie The Wizard starring Fred Savage, the raccoon tail that would enable you to fly...that came from a leaf (none of these things are indicative of flight in the outside world), the Tanooki suit that was all but unusable, but cool anyway. The frog suit that would be awesome in some levels and a total hindrance if you managed to keep it beyond the water levels. The only real downside was that it was too easy to get all of these things, so there was no real challenge to the game when you got the strategy guide free with Nintendo Power.

3. Dr. Mario - All right, I only ever played this for the Nintendo 64, but it's one of the greatest games ever concocted by human minds. Even though it's very similar to Tetris, it discriminates against the color blind. Good enough for me. Oh, it also turns out that I'm really really good at Dr. Mario 64. That's all it takes.

4. Ivan "Ironman" Stewart's Super Off Road! - Ah, Ivan "Ironman" Stewart, your fame will never...begin. To this day, I have no clue who you are, though presumably you drive a truck through mud and run over nitro tablets. It was one of the rare games where I could occasionally beat my brother, though even that was rare. I'm not sure what it was that made me so videogame incompetent then, though I know that it probably carries on to this day.

5. NES Play Action Football - This was the football game I played, not that stupid Tecmo Bowl that everyone remembers. It's really not a very good game, and its comical reduction of football teams to only two or three changeable positions and a bizarre ratings system that made Maurice Carthon a tremendous running back and Ottis Anderson a drooling mental defect incapable of outrunning a defensive tackle or breaking a tackle from a cornerback with a 'boop' noise were among this game's many charms. It also reduced the NFL to 10 teams, but still included Sammy Winder.

Honorable mention: The Mega Man series, Darkwing Duck, Ninja Gaiden, Baseball Stars - you could upgrade your players...it was an amazing innovation, though ultimately self-defeating since you would get better ... and then the game would get easier, Star Wars (not The Empire Strikes Back, that game was ludicrously hard, I don't think I ever got beyond the Ice Planet Hoth), Not Bart vs. the Space Mutants. We paid a lot of money for that lousy game.

Top 5 Things You Do Not Know How to Do

Tim's Top 5:
1) Swim - Everyone has such incredulity towards my inability to swim. My father only learned because he had to in order to graduate from college, and I don't think my mother is extremely confident in her swimming abilities. And I've lived my entire life landlocked in an era where there were video games like Pitfall and Seaquest to remind me that water is overrun with sharks, electric eels, and alligators who have no goal in life except killing you and sending you over to the start of the level. And, let's be honest, as much as I love water in shower and drinkable forms, as a venue for activity, it's pretty gross. Kids pee in the pool, fish do nothing but have sex and defecate in our rivers and ocean...it's like you're spending your time laying facedown in Reno. No thanks.

2) Play the guitar - This reaches my list for obvious reasons, given that I'm trying to do something about it. I've always felt my life was missing something, and I think it could be filled by being that dude who tells people he's thinking of starting a band, just as soon as he masters "London Bridge is Falling Down" on his Les Paul. My goal is to start the band, then graciously let someone else take lead guitar and rhythm guitar and second rhythm guitar and bass while volunteering to be the dynamic front man who lacks all musical ability but will get all the groupies. It's a hard knock life.

3) Dance - I shouldn't even include this, because it's abundantly clear that I'm white, so by including it, I'm a cliche. But it's that I quite literally don't know how. I may actually possess the ability, but it can't be intuited, it can only be unlocked by a heroic intake of booze. It's like an extra level on a video game...and the fact that I would think of that as the most apt analogy pretty much explains how we got to the point where I can't dance...followed closely by the fact that I just now am thinking of the nearly-eponymous Genesis song/album.

4) Drive a manual transmission - This is barely appropriate for the list here because I know how, I just didn't manage to pull it off in my fifteen minutes of attempting in my dad's truck.

5) Watch American Idol - It's clearly something one must learn, and I'm definitely in the remedial class where students do so poorly that they take pride in their underachieving. Whatever is fascinating about 1) people who can't sing, 2) people who can sing and choose to do so by performing songs you already know in a way that will make you run to your ITunes to let Stevie Wonder defend himself, 3) fake drama about getting a record contract even though every asshole who makes it past week 1 (and some who don't) gets a record contract of their own anyway, 4) extra fake drama because apparently the phone systems can't even accurately handle the millions of calls people are placing to vote in this all-too-failed democracy, and 5) unnecessarily long recaps of things that happened in the past even though they are totally irrelevant to the end result of the show -- is apparently totally lost on me, so I must be a cultural heathen. Or you're just a pack of morons who couldn't tell Clive Davis from Clive Barker without a recap show and have some sort of bizarre ambivalent sadism, because you enjoy seeing people's dreams shattered by getting voted off, but seeing them simultaneously fulfilled by securing a deal to sell records to housewives who thought you were cute.

Dan's Top 5:

1. Get Paid for These Various Writing Endeavors - Seriously, how sweet would it be if we could actually get these things published beyond this blog that virtually no one reads? In addition, over at my own blog, I come up with an occasional post that's not unfunny. Surely that's worth something to someone? I'm not asking to be a millionaire, but how about a free sandwich? But nope, my other blog with its invasive Google advertising has so far earned me five cents.

2. Juggle - Seriously, juggling is never truly uncool. Once you know it, it seems like it would take very little energy to do, and it's always kind of fun. If you have three of something, you can always enjoy cheap entertainment. On that note, damn you, Ryan.

3. Drive a Manual Transmission - I had one lesson in a truck with a stick shift, and it just frustrates me that he's moved away. So I kinda sorta know how to do this one, but only when there is no other traffic on the road and I get about half an hour of practice beforehand in a church parking lot.

4. Write Lyrics and Vocal Melodies/Sing - I suck at singing, as is true of many people (see Tim's #5), but when I write music, I also suck at coming up with (a) what the vocals should sound like and (b) the actual words that should be sung. Hence, virtually everything I've recorded to tape disk is hopelessly instrumental, and some lyrics would sure sound good.

5. Swim - OK, I really know how to do this one. But the extent of my swimming ability is limited to preventing my own death and propelling myself while floating on my back. I'd like to know how to do the standard freestyle stroke so I could get in some exercise that doesn't involve me getting all sweaty and stinking.

Ryan's Top Five

1. Know a foreign language - Any language would suffice. One of the reasons I wasn't incredibly keen on grad school (read: one of many) was that I didn't want to devote the time to learning a foreign language (as this necessitates going to another country at some point, essentially). I'd really like to magically speak German (I know a little) or Spanish.

2. Play Guitar Hero on a difficulty above medium - Nuts to actual music, I'd like to have the ability to excel at guitar hero. I do not.

3. Participate in an organized sport - I'm actually pretty good at sports, or I would be if I gave a shit and participated in them. I'd like to know enough people to have an organized game of ultimate frisbee (emphasis on the word 'know,' by which I mean not just any of the random hippies I could find at KU).

4. Disciplining Kids - I am getting better at this. I'm still not, however, good. I tend to subscribe to the notion that if I'm cool enough and my students like me, they will eventually listen to what I tell them to do for this reason. Problem: I'm not cool--not only uncool among my peers, but resoundingly uncool to kids. I also have a difficult time punishing kids who I like but who are nonetheless lazy jackasses. Anyway, this is an ongoing battle that plagues first-year teachers, so I don't feel especially bad at discipline, per se.

5. Review books - To be cocky, I am pretty damn good at reviewing books compared to a lot of the shit I read in papers. I do lack whatever knowledge it takes to get published, as any half-hearted efforts I've made at doing so have not really been followed through...by myself. I'm now tempted to make this a Top 1 List and put "Not Be Lazy" at the top.

Top 5 Guitar Hero III Songs You're Looking Forward To Playing

Now I'm only aware of Ryan being the only other person here who plays Guitar Hero. But since I'm so excited about the new game coming out this fall, here's my list of songs I can't wait to play.

Dan's Top 5:

1. Muse - Knights of Cydonia - I absolutely love this song. At times, I wake up to it in the morning. Having the ability to play this song live - even with plastic buttons - is a godsend.

2. Weezer - My Name is Jonas - You know when you're setting up a computer for the first time with Windows XP, how you have to choose a name for the computer? My computer's name is Jonas.

3. Beastie Boys - Sabotage - Easily the best song this band has ever done, I actually know how to play the main riff on a real bass. So, this is probably the only song I'll be able to play in real life, too.

4. The Rolling Stones - Paint It, Black - One of my favorite Stones songs, this is probably the one I'd probably choose to play on Guitar Hero if I could have only one pick.

5. The Killers - When You Were Young - Great song, but if you're going with a Killers song, you should go with something more guitar-centric, a la Mr. Brightside. Though if it were actually Mr. Brightside, I would probably kill someone in sheer anticipation of the game, so maybe it's a smart choice after all.

Ryan's Top Five

Well, there will be a lot of agreement on this list. Song #1 is easy--Hit Me With Your Best Shot by Pat Benatar, of course. Aha, never mind. Anyway, here goes:

1. through 4. The exact same songs and order as Dan's - Yep, these songs alone are reason enough to buy the game. Which is to say, I'd buy the game if it had only these songs. Or only Knights of Cydonia.

5. Santana - Black Magic Woman - OK, it's a cover, but this song still rocks hard tasty abs washerboard style.