In the 80s, Nintendo was king of gaming. The original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) had several ancestors but no one shined brighter than the brainchild of the most popular Japanese entertainment company. It was the NES who carried over hundreds of classics such as Castlevania, Duck Hunt, and Punch Out.
Three and a half decades later, some of Nintendo’s best games will make a comeback as pre-installed titles of The NES Classic Edition, which is a miniature replica of the 80s NES that comes preloaded with 30 games and connects to TVs using an HDMI port.
The games are a trip down memory lane as some of the console’s titles include the highly-popular Super Mario Brothers 3 and The Legend of Zelda. The controllers can be connected to a USB port so players can probably use their favorite controllers when playing.
Another feature of the miniature-scale console is that players can relive the 80s by enabling the “scan lines” function. Using this mode puts scan lines on the TV, which simulates the screen resolution of old 1980s games. The engineering-centric view, on the other hand, promises to show how games were exactly designed.
There are currently two major drawbacks of the console. The first one is that users can’t add titles to the selection of pre-loaded games, at least for now. Perhaps the games will be sold separately in the future but no one knows for sure. In addition, the controller cables are too short. The only way to remedy this for now is to purchase a really long HDMI cable and keep the consoles near to the player/s.
Today’s games may have evolved from the classic 2D side-scrolling titles to realistic RPGs with 3D graphics. However, the fact that these classics paved the way to how video games are being created today cannot be denied. In an interview with Katie Jackson, a veteran game artist who deals with concept arts and 3D modeling, she said that games may have originally targeted a young market, however, video games have now created a billion-dollar industry that now targets a wider demographic. And the imminent return of these Nintendo’s classics are proof of this, with these old games now being marketed to a whole new gaming audience.
There are plenty of ways in which people can play Nintendo’s classics on the PC. However, doing it requires a bit of work, which is a bit of a hassle for people who don’t know their way around a computer. The NES Classic Edition is plug-and-play so it should attract those who just want to play the game without the technical know-how of installing and operating emulators on the PC.
The NES Classic Edition will be released on November 10 in Japan and Australia, and November 11 in North America and Europe.
