By far the coolest Christmas present I ever received as a child was my Nintendo Entertainment System. Santa Claus really hooked it up when he left me a Nintendo under the tree. Actually, I've recently been told there is no Santa, so maybe it was my mom? Regardless, I was about 7 or 8 whenever I got my Nintendo; and I pretty much spent the rest of that Christmas day playing Ice Hockey, Mario Brothers, & Duck Hunt. (Duck Hunt is quietly slept on as a Nintendo classic by the way.)
I put in a lot of time as a kid playing video games, hell I even owned a VHS copy of
The Wizard. So, I feel I have enough creditability to publish my own personal top 5 list. Without any further delay I give you my favorite Nintendo games of all time....
5) Kung Fu
Kung Fu is another slept on Nintendo classic. It's by far my favorite martial arts game for Nintendo. The game is pretty simple. You bascially just want to kick and punch everyone who crosses your path, and not get hit by weapons. Some random snakes & dragons will also fall from the roof every now and then; it's in your best interests to avoid them. You will be chased by dudes with purple shirts. You want to kick and punch them. Some random dudes will throw knives at you from time to time, you should kick and punch them too. At the end of each level you will have to fight a boss. They are the toughest people you come across, and they have an aresenal of weapons to attack you with. Guess how you beat them?? Kick and punch son. Kick and punch. Kung Fu is a really fun and highly addictive game. I've spent roughly the past twenty minutes playing it
here.
4) Tecmo Super Bowl
I owned my fair share of football games for the NES. Some of them included: John Elway's Quarterback Challenge, 10 Yard Fight, NFL Football, and the original Tecmo Bowl. However Tecmo Super Bowl easily trumps them all. Now honestly none of these game were very realistic, but Tecmo Super Bowl was definitely the most fun. It was the first football game I remember that could track stats and allow you to play out an entire season with your team. It was also really cool to be able to pick the plays for your playbook, which was definitely a huge upgrade over the four pre set plays that you could choose from in the original Tecmo Bowl.
3) Super Mario Brothers 2
All of the Mario Brothers games were cool in their own right, but if I have to pick a favorite I'm going with Mario Bros Numero Dos. The graphics and gameplay were both improved over the og Mario Brothers; and I had way more fun playing Mario Bros 2 than I did Mario Bros 3. How can you not love a game where you can instantly dig onions out of the ground and throw them at people? I probably rolled w/ Luigi the most, but I still choose Mario & the Princess a good bit too. The only character I never picked was Toad. Toad was weak sauce.
2) Contra
Contra was a futuristic war game. It was fun as either a one player or two player game. Contra has probably the most well know cheat code in the history of video gaming: Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A B A Select Start. This cheat code gave you 30 lives, and definitely made beating the game a whole lot easier. It almost made beating the game too easy. In fact I would say that if you grew up the late 80's/early 90's and never beat Contra that you were an underachiever as a child.
1) Mike Tyson's Punch Out
Hands down my favorite Nintendo game of all time is Mike Tyson's Punch Out. (I actually own a t shirt with an illustration of Bald Bull on it.) This game was just fun, and I used to spent days playing it as a kid. To this day, I've still never beaten Mike Tyson. I've fought him a few times, but I always got knocked the what out! Dude was an animal.
The game pits you as Little Mac. Tiny Mac would have been a more appropriate name. Your opponets look like towers compared to you. It looks like you have no business being in the ring with these monsters, but if you can
dodge a jab , block, and counter you will be alright. If you can master the star punch Little Mac becomes a 4 ft 8 107 lb
monster.
