Every American over the age of 16 has watched at least the first Back to the Future movie, featuring the famous Doc Brown and Marty McFly, in their misadventures on 3 different time periods and alternate universes. The first movie was in 1985 and since it had a huge success, the merchandising sector thought it was a good idea to make a game for the new video game machine. . .the NES, which also saw the light of day in 1985.

Everything was planned to go alright; we had a movie that had a timeline in the future, and what better to promote a futuristic movie with futuristic merchandise! Believe it or not, there was a dark era without good videogame consoles (no offense, Atari but. . .you know how it goes). Although the plan seemed flawless, well, the had quite some flaws, the first one, and a lot of games suffer from this one, is that it was very repetitive. I mean, you have to walk 4 sections of a street for five minutes just to get to the cafeteria, which has a pretty high level of difficulty, considering it was just a game that acted like merchandising for a movie. . .

I only played this game once, when I was like 6 years old, and I still remember how difficult it was and frustrating to beat those Biff Tannens on the cafeteria level.

Well, here is a gameplay of the first section (and in which most of us say “Fuck this shit” and go to another game) by CommieCatGirl, enjoy!

Ok, hypothetical situation, what would happen if Duck Hunt met the OC? No, I’m serious, what would happen? Well, something like this:

Based on the now famous SNL sketch ‘Dear Sister’, it caught me off guard and laughed hard. Enjoy!

Well, isn’t this gonna be a sweet Retro Video edition! You know what day is tomorrow, so I wanted to make it really really special. Special like covered in vanilla ice-cream, put some chocolate syrup on top and as finishing touch, a cherry.

As I said, the reason I’m posting Donkey Kong is not because it’s really Retro, or it is a Nintendo game, but because Mr. Shigeru Miyamoto, former Executive Producer for Nintendo, was the one that didn’t give up on Videogames when everyone else thought they were dead; he proposed Donkey Kong, a game where a damsel in distress is taken captive by a huge gorilla and the hero is going to get her back. . .no matter what. (*insert Oohs here*). Needless to say, this was just the dust from the tip of the iceberg that has come to be Nintendo as of now, the hero of that time being our famous Mario (although with some minor changes).

Released for the first time in 1981, the DK arcade was a total blast; it boosted the videogame industry as never before, giving hope to us gamers of today. Now, even though Mario was the hero, DK played a very important role too (and lots of drama later with the Rare issue) so here are videos from every Nintendo console generation until today, showing us how awesome DK was, is, and will always be!

Read more!

Holy crap it finally happened! A Kotaku reader by the name of Stephan created something many of us dreamed of having back in the 80’s: Captain N’s varsity jacket. Which was a huge oxymoron since back in the 80’s no one who wore a varsity jacket got anywere near a NES, let alone get sucked into it.

But I digress, Stephan claims this is a faithful replica to the one used in the cartoon, which I dont imagine being that hard to get, but still awesome. He’s already got the Zapper, now he’s just a working, time stopping controller belt away from being my hero. Rock on Stephan!

[Kotaku]

Here’s an NES mod that not even you tech illiterate folks should have any trouble with! Truthfully, all it consists of is gutting open an NES controller, cutting a hole in it, and fitting an MP3 player in it. I wouldn’t suggest trying this with an iPod, but hey, least it looks cool!

[Instructables]

I just remembered one of the most entertaining games from the NES era which made a lot of my evenings joyful, Puss ‘n Boots. Puss n’ boots? The Puss in Boots that came to be the logo for TOEI Animation? Yes, the same.

This game, fully named “Puss ‘n Boots: Pero’s Great Adventure” was released in 1990 by Electro Brain, a company that tried to make a comeback with “Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth” for the N64. Good games, both of them. In Puss ‘n Boots you controlled Pero, who is he cat from the folktale “Puss In Boots” by Charles Perrault; In Japan the game is basically translated to “Puss ‘n Boots: The Great Adventure of Traveling the World in 80 Days”, and as it suggested, the levels of the game took place in different places of the world, starting with the Wild West, crossing through the Middle East, and finally (and painfully) at the very top of the Statue of Liberty (no kidding, that cat goes up and down while “standing” on Lady Liberty’s longest crown-pick. . .you gotta see it with your own eyes).

There seems to be no videos about the gameplay of this awesome game, but in exchange, I’ll give you some pics from it and the teaser trailer for his movie, directed by the great Hayao Miyazaki. Enjoy!

Well, if you liked it, try to get the game!

A lot of us old school gamers complain that today’s video games are not hard enough. We constantly bring up how when you died in a game there were no saves and if you wanted to continue where you were you had to leave your console turned on and hope it made it through the night. We really love to brag about it, it makes us proud, it makes us hardcore. But if games had been like this obscenely hard Super Mario Bros. hack most of us wouldn’t be here right now, would we?

Even though it gets repetitive as hell I was laughing at his mistakes all the way to the end, anyone know the story behind this mod?

Also, have you ever wondered what’s that sound you hear after Mario falls from the bottom of the screen? Yeah, that’s his spine breaking into a million pieces.

[The Tanooki]

Check out this bitchin’ Wii trailer that shows the an evolution through each console – from the NES to Wii.

I usually lurk around Instructables and I find some pretty neat stuff around there that I always tell myself I should try out sometime… But always find myself too lazy to get started on. Well, this is one of them:

I suppose if you have the time, patience, and the technology, you can make your NES into a PC!

I dont know about you, but my video game prowess has rarely helped me impress the ladies, much less romancing them on the first date. But it seems back in the 80’s, when gaming as so much less geeky and much more thrilling (italicized for the sarcasm challenged), it made the girls like putty through your fingers.

No, being young, funny and quick witted Italian bachelor has nothing to do with it. Its the Mario effect! It was the rage amongst teens, 8-bit aphrodisiac.

[overtime comedy]