Remember Nintendo? Remember Nintendo back when it was a big grey plastic box with front-loading 72-pin game cartridges that worked for about a year before you had to start blowing in them to clear the dust out? Yeah, me too. It was my favorite game system ever. I only had about five games, but that's all I needed to be happy. I miss my Nintendo.
You can find emulators online that will let you play Mario Bros., but it's not the same. Without a little rectangular controller to hold that has buttons positioned just so, it's impossible to recapture the disturbingly accurate muscle memory attained at age 10. Chris solved that problem by finding a guy online who sells real live NES controllers that have been rebuilt with a USB attachment.
It works great -- the scary part is how good I am at Mario Bros. after ten or fifteen years off the horse. I made it through 15 levels (up to world 3-3) without dying once, and made it to world 6-4 before succumbing to the heartbreak of Game Over. It's almost frightening how my fingers found free lives, power-ups, and shortcuts that my brain had forgotten about, and how my brain bid my little man to move out of the way of dangers that hadn't even come on screen yet. Why can't I remember everything that well?
Back to jumping on walking mushrooms now, bye.
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