NES Launch Titles

In October 1985 the NES was launched along with 18 launch titles, one of which was packaged with the system. These titles were selected by Howard Phillips (who you may remember from the Howard & Nester comics in Nintendo Power).

This was back before we called it the NES or the Ness, as some prefer, no, we called it the Nintendo and we were proud to have one. We all had our favorite games, the ones we would rent (or get our parents to rent) every weekend, or get as a present for our birthdays or Christmas. Some of us would pour over the instruction manual (like me) before playing the game. Others, like my brother and many other friends, would eagerly cram the grey cartridge into the VCR-like lighter grey box, press down and slap the flap down with one hand while pressing power with the other. If there were more than one of you in front of the CRT TV, you would fight over controller one or the zapper before finally setting on the turn order wanting to just see the awesome 8-bit graphics (that none of us would have called them back then) and super fun gameplay.

Looking back on those times, there were a few games I missed, but I have since played all of them.

List items

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  1. Stack-Up

  So, this is a game, I think. I'm not really sure. I never had a R.O.B. as there were only two games for it and I didn't get my NES until a few years after it was launched, so it was already obvious that the R.O.B. was a failure by that time.

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  2. Donkey Kong Jr. Math

  Here we have the first playable game on the list. Playable, yes. Fun, well not really. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't going to get much play. Let's be honest, we never played video games (at least not NES games) to learn something. We did all the learning (read: mandatory learning) we cared to do at school that day and just wanted to play games when we got home.

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  3. Wild Gunman

  I'm sure this game was amazing to someone. I know many little boys loved to play Cowboys and Indians or some such variation. This game gave you a 3-shooter and a bunch of bad guys in a good old fashioned quick draw shoot out. Oh man! There is a level of skill in this game, especially when you go up against multiple baddies and your time limit get shorter every few rounds, but it just wasn't the game for me.

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  4. Ice Climber

  This game. Oh this game. I have tried to like it, believe me. I even know it was programmed by the same people who decided how Mario was going to handle when he got his own game, but I do not like it. The jumping physics make no sense to my hardwired Mario mentality. Also, I always found myself falling through the platforms when I thought I should have landed on them. I know some people love this game, but all I can say is: at least it's better than some other launch titles.

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  5. Mach Rider

  I never played this game as a child. At least I don't remember playing it. An why wouldn't I remember this game? It's so memorable. You go forward on your super cool, futuristic, weapon mounted, awesome bike of motorcycleness and shoot. You turn left and shoot. You turn right and shoot, dodge enemies and don't die. Hooray! The whole time I was playing this game I was getting flashbacks to another game I played as a child. In fact, a series of games I played, the Tiger handhelds; every one of them. This is the same game. Left, right, shoot. Left, left, right, right, shoot. This type of gameplay is all well and good, but the major problem I had with the game is when turning corners obstacles would fly at you with no time to react and if you crash into anything you lose a life. If this one issue had been addressed, I think this game would be higher on the list. Maybe if I could catch a fly with chopsticks I would have the reaction time to be good at this game, but I can't, so I'm not.