All-Time Favorite Games (1st in a Series of 7)

a few months ago i jotted down a few notes on what i considered were my personal favorite video games. i based my selections on the consoles that i've had throughout my life, which chronologically were the NES, SNES, Playstation, Gamecube and Playstation 2. i've set aside 7 posts to run down my experiences with 20 of my favorite games, including 4 NES games, 6 SNES, 6 PSX, and 4 for the Gamecube. starting back as far as i can go, here's 2 of my favorite NES games, which should be of no surprise to anyone.

Super Mario Bros. (1985)
i know, i know -- no originality, huh? doesn't really matter if it's the #1 selling game of all time, on all the top 10 games of all time as decided by whomever, whatever -- it has to be on the list. these older games are a lot harder for me to remember, as i was playing SMB when i was like 5-6 years old. as you'll see a lot on my list, i spent a whole bulk of time playing this game over at my friend kevin's house. i remember kevin's sister wasn't at all a gamer, but she was a typical teenage disaster of a chick who scared the crap out of us. she'd come steal the game from us and play for hours while we just watched waiting for her to tire of it and then we could play as long as we want.

as i'm sure most people would agree, it's really the music that's the most memorable about SMB. most people in their 20's and 30's, even if they don't play games, immediately recognize the classic overworld and underworld themes. for some reason any time i hear those classic themes in modern-day mario games, i'm instantly glad that the designers chose to include it.

as mario-based games evolved over time, the games obviously got better and better, but it was really SMB that started it all. the game might have been simple and linear, but it held our attention like no other at the time.

The Legend of Zelda (1987)
another no-surprise for sure, but had to be mentioned. this was a totally different style game to mario, and the beauty of it was being able to go anywhere on the world's map to accomplish tasks. back then i found LoZ to be a lot harder than SMB, but that also made the game more rewarding when you accomplished something. the music was just as classic as well, with the dungeon music being particularly frightening to a young kid like myself.

i remember getting a giant fold-out map of the entire LoZ world and holding onto it like grim death. that annoying beeping sound telling you you were running low on hearts just made you play even harder to avoid the dreaded game over sound. just like with Super Mario Bros., this game was merely a framework for more great Zelda games to come. although i was always disappointed with the direction they took with the second NES Zelda game, with all the side-scroller shit.

i pretty much hold Legend of Zelda to be responsible for starting my love for a good mix of adventure and RPG elements. i loved the idea of the character not just dying when an enemy touched you, but rather having a certain amount of life (hearts) and gaining more life as the game went on. just another great nintendo-developed game that went on to produce a hugely successful franchise.

as i said, these games were kind of no-brainers, but they certainly had to be mentioned, as i remember immensely enjoying them in my earliest gamer days. i'll fire off 2 more of my favorite old NES games in my next post.

--j