Topic: Party to celebrate NES's 25th anniversary

[JonLeung]

Hi guys, long time no talk.
 
I decided to throw a party in honour of the 25th anniversary of the Nintendo Entertainment System next month.  Basically, it would be a seven-and-a-half hour long party, with half an hour spent on each of the fifteen games, three from each console.
 
I spent quite a fair bit of money in the past couple weeks obtaining the games and controllers I need.  So hopefully I have the makings of a good party.

Though I did buy an NES Four Score, I was surprised at the lack of good four-player games on the NES.

Similarly, there aren't many Super Multitap games that aren't sports games.  So I'm sticking with the tried-and-true Mario Kart and Street Fighter, even if they're only two players.

As I mentioned, I don't like sports games, but arcade-style games like NBA Hang Time I can certainly do.  The other two are pretty much givens.

Three vastly different GameCube games.  I even have four GBA-GCN cables and I'm borrowing two more GBAs to fully experience Four Swords Adventures!

Super Smash Bros. Brawl will be the last game of the night.  Another fighting game and another game featuring Mario reinforce the point made all night long that Nintendo has awesome multiplayer experiences.
 
So, what do you think of my selections?

[broodwars]

If you really are going for games that play well at parties, I'd swap out Geist and put in Timesplitters 2 or 3.

[UncleBob]

If you're looking for Nintendo + Multiplayer, it seems that Mario Party needs to be in the lineup in some form.  Also, no puzzle games?  Although they do tend to be aimed more toward the handhelds, Tetris, Dr. Mario, Puzzle League, Yoshi's Cookie... 

But, overall, a good line-up.

[BeautifulShy]

Wow all good choices. The first 2 NES games I have never heard of before.So I can't comment on them. Haven't played Giest or 4 Swords Adventure but I heard they have great Multiplayer.

For the Wii games are you going to play them with your friends locally or are you going to play online?

[TJ Spyke]

The first 2 NES games I have never heard of before.So I can't comment on them.

The second one is available on Virtual Console if you want to play it.

Most of those are pretty good picks, I do agree with brood about maybe using TimeSplitters 2 (even though the load times in the GCN version are a little annoying).

[BranDonk Kong]

Holy ****! Anticipation was basically my favorite NES game ever! I can't believe I'd forgotten about it, though I haven't played it in 20 years or so.

[ThePerm]

ive played a Nightmare on Elm Street on NES, and its a four player game. Not only is it fun...its made by Rare.

[UncleBob]

Ooohhh... I dunno which one you'd cut out (probably Super Mario Kart, since you're already covered with Mario Kart Wii) - Kirby Super Star... that was fun in co-op mode.

[JonLeung]

Considering that we're planning to play fifteen games in seven and a half hours, that's thirty minutes for each, which is why I didn't consider any co-op games because of the unlikelihood of finishing them within a half-hour.  Therefore, no Contra/Super C/III, no Kirby: Super Star, no TMNT II/III/IV, no Final Fight/2/3, nothing like that.  (And no Nightmare on Elm Street, even though I recall liking that game, even though the initials also spell out NES (or NoES), and even though a modified Power Glove was featured in one of the movies.   : )  The Mario Party games, well, the mini-games seem too short, and any game mode seems too long.   

With that stipulation of no strictly co-op, I found that the selections for the NES and Super NES were actually very limited.  There are tons of co-op games, but very few pick-up-and-play competitive games.  Sports games bore me (if they're not arcadey) and I didn't want any of the Street Fighter wannabes.

Included with my eBay purchases, even though they're not officially on the list, are Tetris & Dr. Mario (Super NES), Killer Instinct (Super NES) and Mortal Jombat Trilogy (N64).  Me and/or my brother also already own Killer Instinct Gold (N64) and Pokémon Puzzle League (N64).  I will likely have NBA Jam (Wii) and Wii Party (Wii) before then, as well.  So those, and probably others I can't recall this second, are possible sub-ins.  Dunno about Just Dance 2 (Wii), though.  It was actually considered since it'll be the newest game by the time of the party, but if no girls are present, then I don't think any of the guys will want to get up and move, about seven hours into a gaming marathon and being around midnight.  :
 
I remember liking TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, so 'll consider a TimeSplitters game for a future party (there will be more, since I spent too much as it is!), but I still want to give Geist a spin, at least once.  Sure, getting it free from the purchase of my Wii is probably saying something, but I'd never played multiplayer with anyone other than my brother.  I'd actually finished the single-player story on a rental when it first came out, but it was funny that I'd never played my own copy until a few days ago.

[UncleBob]

If you have multiple televisions, you could consider having players swap out to complete some of the co-op games.  And with Kirby: Super Star, you can always just play though the Spring Breeze part of the game.  Short, sweet and a great taste of the entire game.   Or, if you have it unlocked, The Arena could be interesting for some two-player time killing.

So where and when is this party and where's my invitation?

[DAaaMan64]

I also agree that TimeSplitters would be better. But I'd definitely go that party!

[JonLeung]

If you have multiple televisions, you could consider having players swap out to complete some of the co-op games.  And with Kirby: Super Star, you can always just play though the Spring Breeze part of the game.  Short, sweet and a great taste of the entire game.   Or, if you have it unlocked, The Arena could be interesting for some two-player time killing.

So where and when is this party and where's my invitation?

I HAD the Arena unlocked.  Somehow in testing out the Super NES, a 100% saved file was still there on my Kirby: Super Star cartridge, but then after a couple tries (I've got vertical stripes on many Super NES games, that cleaning hasn't fixed yet, so I have to borrow another Super NES), the saved file seems to have been erased.  A possible battery problem?  Perhaps static?  Static is one theory as to why my N64 games kept resetting randomly and frequently on certain games, but after some use, the resets became less and less frequent and now it seems to be working perfectly fine with all games.  A friend suggested I keep my Super NES on for a day to kill the graphical stripes problem; do you think that would be a good idea?  Still, looks like I have to replay Kirby: Super Star to unlock the Arena again.  Though I suppose there are worse ways to spend my time.  :

I'm guessing you don't live in Edmonton, UncleBob, and even if you did, I had to keep my invitee list small, because of time limitations, that's why there were so many people who didn't get an invite who might enjoy this too.  I already think I invited too many people as it is.  Still, the idea of using multiple TVs is intriguing and might alleviate the strictness in the schedule.  A friend offered to bring a projector, too.  Hmmm.

Just 'cause you can't come to MY party doesn't mean you can't host your own party, and hopefully this has given you some ideas.  Seeing as how there's two weeks until then (if you need the same occasion to celebrate), better hit up eBay now.  It's probably easier for Americans to buy from other Americans as you probably have more shipping options (including overnight!), but when us Canadians buy from Americans, customs holds it up.  Maybe I shouldn't've bought a Power Glove alongside some of these games, the customs agents might play with it, or flag it down if it looks like some kind of weapon (like Sam apparently has in Transformers III, coming out in 39 weeks, but who's counting?)...

[JonLeung]

We had this party last night, and it was crazy fun!

We subbed out Anticipation for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade game (and just played until we got Game Over, which was in the second stage, in the sewers) and replaced Super Mario Kart with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters.  Unfortunately we couldn't get to Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but it was still an insane night without it.

The half-hour per game we actually managed to stick pretty well to, surprisingly, but next time I'll set aside more time for the better game.  Every game managed to elicit some laughs regardless.  You guys were right, Geist was a little weak, though it still had its moments.  Crash 'N' The Boys: Street Challenge was tons more fun than I expected.

Because the party was such a hit, I've been asked to host more "Retro Nintendo Nights" in the future.  Can't deny people that if that's what they want!

[Spak-Spang]

I would go for Super Bomberman 2 for the SNES...it is a better Bomberman experience.

Or you could do Bomberman on the NES which I believe is 4 players...maybe not. 

Star Fox 64's multiplayer was a mixed bags.  I didn't enjoy the straight dogfights, but I heard that if you unlocked all the modes that the Star Fox multiplayer was much better.  I never go to experience it all though.

Perhaps the next time just have 2 games per console so that you can play longer without adding too much time to the party.