EVERYTHING IS PIXELATED: The top 127 games from the third generation of home video game consoles (Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Master System, Atari 7800)

yeah i was talking about california games sorry - they all kinda ran together in my head as i think we had all of the major ones except 'world games.'

haha i was the lone wizards and warriors voter and now i have no complaints at all with lone-voter games making the rollout. wizards and warriors is not really a great platformer - it's repetitious and kinda stupid, but there are some GREAT tunes (first level tune, you're-about-to-die tune) and i was really taken by the vibe/environment. the first (forest) level goes a long way towards establishing this cozy medieval adventure feel, lots of shit is happening, you're finding cool shit in chests. then it seems like the next three levels are in alarmingly same-y caves before anything happens again. the one thing that reeeeeally sucks is waiting and waiting for an enemy to drop the particular potion you need to make a particular jump - that's bad design and they should have caught it the first time through playtesting.

you can tell they were going for a ghosts n goblins or castlevania thing, with this 'journey' (love any game where you see an overall mini-map of the levels and how they connect, after you beat each one), but just didn't have the chops to pull off CV... but thankfully they made it less arbitrarily punishing than G&G - you could rent it, beat it, and enjoy renting it and beating it again. given that the same cartridge could hold really fully-fledged adventures it's unquestionably kind of a throwback, but it would have been a top-tier home-computer game in 1987, where the competition was instead dark castle.

117 - Batman: Return of the Joker (NES) - 10 points / 1 Vote
http://i.imgur.com/iGMtpxo.png

117 - Kung Fu (NES) - 10 points / 1 Vote
http://i.imgur.com/Ps4qy8c.png

haha Kung Fu, man I sucked at that

117 - RBI Baseball (NES) - 10 points / 1 Vote
http://i.imgur.com/kctHDoc.png

never played kung fu till emus - but i knew it, not from nintendo power but from its predecessor (?), this wonderful, big, full-color, screenshot-ridden tome:

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/nintendo/images/a/ab/PlayersGuide.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090701191944&path-prefix=en

real range of games in there tbh - everything from first-generation "this could be an atari 5200 game" cartridge-filler to some of the signature epics of the system. the comparatively slow build of the NES's north american success - released for christmas 1985, but the "action set" bundled with mario bros/duck hunt and the zapper wasn't until 1988! - plus the delay versus the famicom itself meant that things that really felt like "launch titles" to most kids my age (zelda, castlevania) were actually mature games released halfway through the system's effective lifespan. and then the imperial-phase games seemed to come right on their heels. it was just such a bonanza of high-quality stuff, with these much, MUCH more basic games sitting right alongside them on the shelf.

anyone ever watched a game of RBI baseball?

As a life-long sports abstainer, the ____ Games games are pretty much the only sports games I ever played (barring a recent half-hearted attempt at learning what football is from playing Madden). They were a ton of fun.

Hey Mordy, which USB controller did you get? I recently bought a Super Nintendo one and am quite pleased.

As the sole vote for Boy and His Blob, I gotta say Casino is probably otm, but I still loved playing that game just for sheer zaniness. It was flawed, but I loved what they were going for and enjoyed playing it.

Also RBI Baseball strikes me as a pretty quintessential 8-bit sports game, I'm surprised I was the only vote for it! Many hours spent with it as a child.

i got this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Classic-USB-NES-Controller-PC/dp/B002YVD3KM

it's great for what it is but damn i forgot how much the NES controller hurts your hands

how is the lag with that? the problem i've had with USB controllers is that they seem to have a small lag, which makes playing the reflex-based NES games impossible. on the other hand, using a keyboard eliminates the lag, but is really awkward for most games.

i beat mega man 2 + mike tyson's punch out with it a month ago and didn't experience any lag problems

i used OpenEmu (not sure if that makes a difference)

Grateful for the emulator info itt!

111 - Gradius 2 (NES) - 11 points / 1 Vote
http://i.imgur.com/eknFwKB.png

yes, #111 = 11 points 1 vote, it is amazing

speaking of shmups at 111/11/1

111 - Parodius Da (NES) - 11 points / 1 Vote
http://i.imgur.com/UT8Zpix.png

those images might be fucked up. found it tough to get a bead on which game was which

hmm, that image is from the coin op. my bad. here's the european release NES box art thx to wikipedia:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/32/Parodius_NES.jpg

111 - Recca (NES) - 11 points / 1 Vote
http://i.imgur.com/gjRWNQC.png

So many shmups

never got Parodius over here. Was heavy into Stinger though (aka Twinbee 2 or whatever)

111 - Rocky (Sega) - 11 points / 1 Vote
http://i.imgur.com/PBr80Ro.png

111 - Teddy Boy (Sega) - 11 points / 1 Vote
http://i.imgur.com/dy05MV8.png

never heard of recca, looks cool? more interested in the goofiness of parodius though.

as a kid, even before getting into robotech, i was really drawn into anything with manga-style art, always disappointed on some level when the game itself featured nothing of the sort. i just really liked that 'look,' without even a name for it.

109 - Golgo 13 (NES) - 12 points / 1 Vote
http://i.imgur.com/B6I0wsh.png

heyo

i've never played that game or even really seen it but it looks crazy!

109 - Ice Climber (NES) - 12 points / 1 Vote
http://i.imgur.com/DnHBvla.png

^ also love this box art template. i actually made a PSD of a blank one and set it up so i could make each result in the style of a NES game box, but realized that it'd jsut be bettr to include the original boxes for these games (and also some of these games are sega and atari.)

GOLGO-13 was beyond Nintendo hard btw. After a certain point it just never let up, IIRC. I can't believe people actually beat it.

108 - Wizards and Warriors II: Ironsword (NES) - 13 points / 1 Vote
http://i.imgur.com/73BwM0l.png

w&w II was all about the atmosphere and non-linear levels

Italian model Fabio Lanzoni portrays the protagonist Kuros on the game’s cover, but he does not make an in-game appearance.

102 - Bases Loaded (NES) - 14 points / 1 Vote
http://i.imgur.com/I6wNxHZ.png

102 - Double Dribble (NES) - 14 points / 1 Vote
http://i.imgur.com/0xmuiFf.png

102 - Golden Axe Warrior (Sega) - 14 points / 1 Vote
http://i.imgur.com/9txNF4p.png

Used to play a TON of Double Dribble on NES. That games rules.

GOLGO-13 looks really cool and ahead of its time.

huh, so if you had an SMS, was Golden Axe Warrior your Zelda?

i beat w&w2:ironsword, just want that recorded. otm about the nonlinear levels. a maddening game tho.

looking at golgo 13 footage it does look kinda wild - bunch of different styles of gameplay, from side scrolling exploration/fighting stuff to a SHMUP, to a first-person maze thing.

102 - Mickey Mouse Castle Of Illusion (Sega) - 14 points / 1 Vote
http://i.imgur.com/VxzCLWs.png

ooo forgot to vote for that but it was one of my favorites as a kid

the sms version?

i feel like that game will get its due in the 4th gen poll

In the Japanese version, Grant is easily the strongest companion, because he can throw knives for free. In the American version, Sypha is probably the best, especially with the ice spell. Alucard is probably the weakest in both versions.

huh, didn't realize! i really struggled to make sypha help me out on the ghost ship, which is the first stage after you pick her up. hmm. i'll give her another go.

Was the ZX Spectrum not a part of this generation? Or is that not even considered a video game console? Or did it just suck?

nah that wasn't a console, it didn't have cartridges and controllers and that kind of thing

i probably could have counted it but it was basically a home computer, and the computer game poll is a thing that is too overwhelming to even figure out a way to split up so i haven't tackled it! someone else can put a bell on that cat's collar

If I were to do it (which I'm not) I'd do it for all non console games - any platform (speccy, c64, amiga, st, pc) as long as it's never appeared on a console. too broad?

Maybe remove pc, but then not sure how much interest there would be for those remaining four. (I'm in tho)

or at least limit to an era of pc

yeah no pc games would feel... purer.