Category: NES

It goes down sweet and smooth, but it’ll cost you a few Golds

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Faxanadu (1990)

I’ve done some pretty crazy things and mad things to where I get close to women you know without getting arrested, that is, and chiefly among them is temporarily taken up smoking. Now, I came from a heavy smoking household. I used to be under the impression that the terms are super nintendo yellow. All the smoke it was that bad, but for my parents that is who have both since given up in fairness to them. I hope it isn’t too little too late.

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Just you try running from Marathon to Athens with eagles pecking out your guts

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The Battle of Olympus (1991)

It’s one of those moments that I wished I’d recorded, or even better, wished I wasn’t too prosaic to convey to you what it was like, but please let me try and picture the scene for you. You can just lie back and doze really, because that’s exactly what I was doing in a beautifully air-conditioned hotel room in Greece when suddenly I was awoken and told by my missus to come to the window, quickly.

I was straight over, of course – sure, this was the middle of the night, but I thought it had to be some kind of spectacle that wasn’t to be missed. Someone had drunkenly fallen in the pool, for example, or a Mythos beer truck had turned over and was spilling its beautiful local beer everywhere.

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One boy’s brave mission to supply every home on the street with toilet paper

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Paperboy (1985 / 1991)

I’m sorry, but have you used the Internet lately? You go onto a website these days and you’re lucky if you can see any of the content. All the GDPR Suits are in your face with notices asking you for your cookies. What? Those are my cookies, you hungry e-whores, so get your own.

You get the feeling as well that this is something you really should be taking more notice of, like the app permissions on your phone. Click “Accept All” at your peril, because when your credit card details get harvested, milked for quite literally all you’re worth, your financial assailant will be perfectly entitled to point out that you gave them the express permission to do it.

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Those very early NES games… they’re not ones you get the bug for

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Donkey Kong 3 (1983)

Bugs, bugs, bugs… I’m telling you, they’re everywhere. It might even be that my house is bugged with listening devices – actually, I already know it is, I’m typing this on my phone right now. But I’m not talking about electronics here – I’m on about our constant struggle to keep human supremacy over our fellow partaker in earth’s space: insects.

It’s obviously difficult for even the most ennui-affected, do-nothing professor to actually verify this, but we understand that there are 200 million insects for every single person on earth. Are you serious?! My calculator breaks when I try to multiply 200 million by 7 billion. Well, strictly speaking that’s not true, but it starts giving me the letter “e” instead which obviously stands for error. But I think we can surmise that, if those insects ever did put all their differences aside, banded together and took us on… well, I’m plenty tough, but I ain’t tough enough to take on 200 million in a row, am I?

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He’s the rotten apple of the nasty Kong’s eye

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Donkey Kong Jr. (1982)

I know it’s coming, by God, I know it’s coming. I’m like the gorilla in that Dairy Milk ad, sitting and waiting on the drum-kit as Phil Collins lilts through the air, before everything comes crashing down. I’m talking about the biological clock of course, and how madly it begins to tick. It’s not my own clock, of course, my tadpoles are good for life. But the missus you see, the bells toll for her. She tells me now, “no kids”, “I like being able to hand them back” and all that game.

Don’t listen to all that, this is all just designed to trap young bucks like you and I into settling down. Then, before you know it, you’re changing nappies because you’re a “modern man”. Then you’re losing an absolute fortune. Then, you’re almost as much of a disappointment to your unruly child as they are to you. God, they might even bring the police home, or worse, someone who supports your favourite team’s biggest rivals. 

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A war’s brewing, you say? The country’s on fire? I ain’t your guy, then

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Fire Emblem Gaiden (1992)

It’s all going nuts again. Geopolitically, I mean. Of course, even that sentence doesn’t date this piece too badly – a headline like “Tensions mount in Middle East” could be on any online news outlet since the mid 90s and still be relevant. For today’s purposes, let’s just say that the Taliban are at it again. I wonder if they’ll still be at it in 20 years time? Or will there even be a 20 years time, because it gives you a right frightenener down the jacksy when those boys are at it, America and Russia are responding (the UK tries to pop up but deliberately gets ignored) and then suddenly fingers begin hovering over the big red button.

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24 centimetres, I didn’t know they stacked it that high

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Stack-Up (1986)

It’s funny how your job description gets thrown out from under you. I was initially employed as a Customer Success Manager, which is a nice and fancy way of saying a Project Manager, with a particular proclivity for taking guff from clients. By the end of it I was a chatbot programmer, developer, troubleshooter, optimiser, humaniser, tester and detester in all but name.

Yes, if you’ve ever gone on to a company’s website and tried to complain, only to find yourself confronted by a “hip”, “cool” chatbot who says “Great! I’m happy to hear that” when you tell it that your grandmother has died, then yes, that was me, and I’m truly very sorry for all that.

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Using your SNES as a learning tool? I must be missing the point

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Mario is Missing! (1993)

If you’re anything like me, then you’ll have been living your life dodging as much responsibility as humanly possible. After all, what good can possibly come out of having responsibility? Talk about putting an enormous target on your back, and inviting mouthbreathers to come up and take their best shot at you. Putting yourself in the hot seat may confer you with riches, adulation and fame – but it won’t be long before someone tries to knock you off your perch, or worse, they all come to you looking for a clue. And who needs that kind of pressure?

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It’s the greatest sport since Tit Cricket

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Tetris (1989)

You wouldn’t believe the kind of sports, games and events out there that are being done competitively. Ever heard of the Bog Snorkelling Championship? Here in Ireland we have the National Ploughing Championships, and once you’ve stopped laughing, I’ll have you know that it’s quite a big event on the redneck social calendar, and I’ve never gotten an invite to it. And believe me, though I hate to say it, I want one.

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The city streets are dangerous, full of fighting, and usually there’s a gal involved

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River City Ransom (1990)

You can tell from my pipe cleaner arms that I’m not very well equipped for a fight. If Tyson Fury were to take one look at me, I doubt he’d even give me enough credit to call me a dosser. Then he might put me on my bum in less than a second, and I hardly think I’d come back from the dead like he famously did in the fight against Wilder.

But, and this might only be a British and Irish thing, when you’ve had a skinful of drink and get into a drunken stupor, that’s when the trouble starts. The line becomes very thing, and it’s easy to feel that someone else has wronged you and your fragile ego. It isn’t long before you start getting, as my behavioural psychologist calls it, slit-eyed and shirty.

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