Nintendo Entertainment System

Back in the good old days of the 8 bit console wars your choice of games console was limited to the Nintendo Entertainment System or the Sega Master System. There was of course the old atari 7800 knocking around in Argos and The Catalogue Shop (before it became Index and then before it became a section of the Littlewoods shop and before Littlewoods went tits up) but no fucker was gonna be fooled by an old piece of shit like that let alone face the mocking tones of every kid in school for having parents dumb enough to actually buy that joke of a machine.

As a kid of course i had the Master System and fun it was too. I did however get my fair share of play time on the NES as well.

Released in 1986 in europe the Nintendo Entertainment System (bollocks to this i'm typing NES from now on) came bundled with quite possibly the most iconic character in gaming history. O lets be fair after a while (and no matter how good it was) we all eventually got pissed off to the back teeth of super mario brothers). I never owned a NE initially and only really purchased one during the hey day of the 16 bit gaming revolution (when it was piss cheap) Most of my gaming experiences with this machine came straight from playing a friends version. One of the cool things about the system was no matter how much a game pissed you off or made you angry those controllers (that were usually the first to hit the wall of a bedroom) always seemed to withstand the attack of even the most annoyed gamer. (so points to nintendo there). And boy were there some annoyingly infuriating piece of shit games for the system. TNMT (work it out coz im not bloody writing it out) was one of the many games to annoy. For starters every kid that heard of it was hoping it was going to be a conversion of the turtles arcade game (see it was turtles) only to get it home and be disappointed by the infuriatingly difficult side scrolling platform beat em up with shitty top down sections that always saw you getting lost and levels with unfair pixel perfect jumping that would see the controller get another dent to go along with the ones sustained from marathons of ghouls and ghosts. Another launch title for the richer kids who could afford more than the basic bundle came in the shape of duck hunt. which provided ohhhhh minutes of entertainment until you realised you couldn't shoot that smug faced fucking dog.

On paper at least the SMS (ok sega master system) was superior having access to a greater colour palette and graphically superior to the NES with the promise of being able to play all those lovely cutting edge Sega arcade classics. So why (in my opinion at least) did Nintendo win hands down?

Nintendo wasn't under any illusion about exactly what the NES was it was a home console with a fraction of the power of any arcade machine that you could plonk 10p into and as a result they (Nintendo at least) created games specifically for their system alone. Step forward Super Mario Brothers 1 2 and 3 (ok not 2 that wasn't originally a Mario game but still good). When Nintendo got it right they got it damn near perfect and the former mentioned games are a testament of how good Nintendo could be as software developers Punch out and the money for old rope Mike Tysons Punch Out was another fun game to spend an afternoon on. The Kirby series equally a great platform game as well. And not forgetting the Zelda game that started it all (but not zelda 2 that was well shit). Unlike Sega Nintendo seemed to get the best software developers to create games for their system as well 3rd party was where it was at  and companies like Capcom and their Disney versions of games (Ducktails to this day remains a favourite) pushed Nintendo up the most wanted list far beyond Sega's grasp. Oh and lets not forget another Capcom legend Mega Man fantastic music from a machine that could (in lesser hands) do plinky plonky music. And then there was Konami TNMT aside they were responsible for the Castlevania series that also shifted NES's like hotcakes. Games for the nes became genre defining to this day you know that sooner or later another metroid game will be released for the latest system or another Contra (thanks Konami) Castlevania Mario and Zelda Not too recently another KId icarus game was released for the 3ds.

Where Sega eventually fall flat on its arse and disappeared from the console market Nintendo to this day is still going from strength to strength and it was and is all down to this first mainstream console The Nintendo Entertainment System.

I would get another if they weren't so fucking expensive now

Ohhhhhhhh To play any nes game right now (i just found a site) without the need to download any emulator or rom (coz that would be technically breaking the law) you can go to http://nesbox.com/game where you just have to click on the game you want' wait a while while the flash player loads the relevent game and emulator and then play that game using the arow keys (arent i nice to you).