Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Mike Tyson's Punch Out!


Before I left for France I downloaded some emulators for the NES, SNES and Gameboy Advance systems. For anyone not in the know emulators are basically are essentially exact copies of the real game systems, set up for your PC. Technically they deal in copyright infringement, but I figure these are old systems, and I purchased all the games for these things years ago, so it’s ok.

I have been playing these suckers like made in France. Nothing cures my culture shock like turning 14 again and playing a little Super Mario Bros. Back in the day, my brother called me a Nintendo nerd, which was quite true, though it did hurt my feelings.

Lately, I have become addicted to Mike Tyson’s Punch Out. I played this game for hours and hours when I was a kid. Me, my brother, and my cousins used to try to out punch each other and see who could finally beat the thing. As I recall, I could never actually defeat Mike Tyson in the final bout. Dude, with one punch that bad boy would knock you down. And as the way these things go, by the time I was really close to being able to beat him, everyone else was tired of the game, which means we had probably gone out and bought another game. Ice Hockey maybe, or the impossible Adventures of Link.

Anyways the emulator scene is one of nostalgia and fun for me. It is amazing how well these games still hold up after all these years. Sure the graphics are pretty crappy, and the game play isn’t all that spiffy, but they are straight forward and a lot of fun. In fact, I prefer a lot of the NES games over the newer superbit games they have these days. Punch Out doesn’t take a degree in physics or make you be double jointed to be able to figure out the controls.

Good emulators can be found with a simple google search, or the use of the P2P sharer of your choice. Here, and here are pretty good fan sites for Punch Out.

7 comments:

bigsip said...

Sweet, Brew! Those hearken back to my old NES days. Of course, to go way back, I would need some Atari, Odessey, and Commodore 64 stuff, too. Fun stuff!

JS said...

I was playing that a few months back on my emulator.. I could NOT get past Soda Popinsky...

I also have the emulators on my pocket PC, great for traveling.

I was a nintendo nerd too, i had a subscription to "Nintendo Power" in its early days...

JS said...

i have atari emulators too... you think now that youd like to play them, turns out they all suck and arent that fun.

bigsip said...

Probably true...Actually, I don't play games anymore anyway. I have a really awesome LOTR game on my desktop and never play it. I just don't really care to play any games anyway. Luke is too fun. Of course, when he is old enough, I am sure he and I will play LOTS of video games! I'll have an excuse then to buy the latest in video game fun! Right now, I play with him, spend time with my lovely wife, and pass the time with writing books and reading books. Life is quite simple in its complexity.

Mat Brewster said...

Funny you should say that, Jamison, because I'm stuck on Soda Popinsky too. But I've only fought him once, and am sure I'll get him soon.

Agreed on the Atari games. The graphics are horrible, the game play awkward and conceptually they are just dumb. Anyone remember Pitfall? There was absolutely no point to that game. You went through the same screens over and over and over again to no end.

JS said...

The empire strikes back game was like that too... you would fight the AT-ATs until, well, they killed you... typical.

bigsip said...

HA! Yeah, I remember TESB and Pitfall. I think the only point was to earn points...but, I'm still not sure. I remember a game on our Commodore 64 where you go through all these screens and fight different people with karate moves to save this chick. Only thing is, when you get to the end and are about to rescue her, she kicks you in the face and kills you! That game made me very angry...