Nintendo NES

My sister purchased this fine machine in the autumn of 1991 for the platry sum of 30 quid. We eagerly fetched it home, and played it in our front room, whooping in amazement at the clear and crisp graphics of Mario Bros. 2, the sublime sound, the non-finicky control, and best of all, the sheer fun of it all. You must understand, before this, we owned an Amstrad. We loved it, it played text adventures and wild bunch, but the graphics were never like this. And nor was the sound! Jet Set Willy had cool music yes, but you couldn't see him could you? There were only 3 colours on the screen(it seemed like that anyway) and you couldn't see his muostache could you?

Well, anyway. We had a friend who owned the Nes, and our experience on that was enough to make our own purchase. We had only a few games, but every one gave us many hours of enjoyment, and even my own mother was impressed by the graphics, which is actually saying something.

Okay, so todays streamlined spoilt generation would scream in horror at its sheer boxiness, its grey shades, its right angled thumb churning control pads, but oh how I love my Nes.

It introduced Donkey Kong to our home, Mario, Zelda and others. It gave me my first shot at bonafide platforming, combat games, hack and slash, rpg and more. The revolutionary save pack of Zelda 2, and the replayability of it all. Even now I can take the Nes from its place and have a crack at Zelda 2, and marvel at its ambition to break the mould, to strive for difference, and to take me, even now, to the limits of my skills.

Games today are so easy in comparison, and the NES was truly brilliant. The graphics on Mario 3 were breath taking, and are excellent even by todays standards, and the playability of many games, as I have mentioned already, is astounding.

The NES was never super. But it sure was entertaining, and I am proud as heck to own one, along with a gold Zelda 2 catridge which I would not trade for anything (except perhaps a million quid...not to would be idiotic).