It was my first ever game console. My parents got it for us one Christmas before I even knew such a thing existed. I remember when I was 4 years old I would always wake up at like 5 in the morning to play for hours before anybody else woke up. I loved it. I used to play it so long.

I'm not even sure what happened to our NES... We probably gave it away when we got the SNES. At that age I couldn't have known how attached I'd be to it and really couldn't have convinced my parents or brother to hold onto it...

For a few years now I've been regretting the consoles we've let go (NES, SNES, original PS). I've had it in mind to get working models so I can continue to play the games as they were originally intended (backwards compatibility and emulation are convenient, but often not the same).

I spent Friday at my brother's drinking, listening to music, just chillin'. Somehow NES came into the conversation (possibly the shirt I was wearing) and I mentioned that I wanted to get one again. My brother suggested looking at eBay and started searching. Eventually, he left to do something and I took a look.

I sorted through a lot of offers that seemed decent, but just not quite what I wanted. Some of them looked discolored (hopefully mine isn't...), others only came with one controller or lacked the light-gun, others were missing one of the three games I really wanted. Then I stumbled across one that sounded like it was in good condition and whose seller claims works (hopefully it really does). It allegedly comes with all cables, two controllers, a light-gun, and 18 games (including SMB, SMB3, and TLoZ; the three games I had wanted as a bare minimum). I don't recognize most of the other games, but we were never well off so we never had many games when we were kids. The system, cables, controllers, and those 3 games will be all I need to be satisfied.

The bidding started at USD$0.01, but after evaluating how much it was worth to me I offered up to USD$200 from the start. That was early yesterday afternoon. The auction was only until tonight. Nothing happened until midday when somebody bid USD$30. Not even close. My bid was upped automatically to USD$31 and the auction remained uneventful until the final minute when a new bidder offered USD$40. My bid was again automatically upped to just above that. Win! The shipping was about the same so the total is approximately USD$80.

I'm now waiting for PayPal to process my order which unfortunately might take a week thanks to bank processing times. Hopefully that isn't a problem for the seller. Hopefully it all works out and more importantly hopefully everything is in adequate condition. Hopefully I don't regret this thread.

Nice! I'll be in the market for an NES sometime this summer, as well. I never had one as a kid, probably because it's a little before my time. I used to play one at a friend's house when I was little, though.

My favorite game for the NES is probably River City Ransom. I recommend having a looksie if you're looking for games .

I just bought a PS1, which is another console I never had. I've mostly just been playing Harvest Moon, since it's basically my favorite game.

The thing with the NES is that finding good games is really hard (not because there are none, but because there weren't reviews back then). You know the SMB games, the Zelda games (I am guessing the Zelda battery is already done for, too), the Ninja Gaiden, etc, are good games. But some jewels may be below your radar.

I would recommend Battletoads, especially if you can play with someone else. I remember the reviews back then stating something like "incredible, brilliant and technically genial, this game stands above everything released for the NES so far, including Super Mario Bros 3." The main drawback is the difficulty, which used to put it below SMB3. Probably one of the hardest games ever released.

The Star Wars games were also really good, but really hard as well. You could choose to play as different characters, and until SMB3 appeared, they would be at the top of the NES rankings.

Oh, and Kirby's Adventure was the one leading the rankings at the death of the NES, the only one using a 6 megabit cartridge.

Congrats on your purchase. I was talking to a friend over the last couple of days about the nes in general and the game Pitfall! specifically. She is going to check out Gametap. What games did it come with?

I only count 17 so he must have counted SMB/DH as two games. I guess technically it is, but... Oh well.

It's probably good you said something. I don't remember anything like that... Although I never actually had Zelda before (played it briefly at my cousins' a few times though).

Even SNES? Are you sure? I've never done that with a SNES

It is suggested to do that to prevent losing the data. I hope you got a second pad for Zelda, otherwise you won't be able to save.

Oh, loved that game. Scared the hell out of me too, especially with Jason randomly appearing around.

You Should get Metroid for the NES. All you have to do for saving is copying the password it gives you. I´m still intrigued that the password was so effective for the game to know your status, the ammo. Also, it might´ve been one of the longest games I´ve ever played in the NES XD.

I remember I had a NES when I was 5 years old, but when I reached 8, my mother gifted it to some weird kids... I´ve hated them ever since

Yes, and regarding password systems, Faxanadu's blows hard. Uppercase letters, lowercase letters, 0 and O and o, 1 and I, .. Hope you're not too groggy when writing those 30-40 characters down.

To save in the original Zelda you had to press Up and Start (or something like that) in the second pad to get the Save menu. The playing is done through the first pad, but maybe you can disconnect it and connect in the second control to get the menu.

International SuperStar Soccer (that would be the SNES version of Winning Eleven/Pro Evolution Soccer) had like 60 characters of all those. Awful!

I've never had a game console, but I had a few of those bitty 8 bit computers that would use a TV for a monitor. They all had a little slide switch at the bottom to select channel 3 or channel 4. I think the FCC didn't allow adjacent channel numbers to be within reception range to avoid interference, so you should have been able to get an unused channel with only two selections back in the day.

I've never heard of holding the reset switch on a SNES while saving. I've owned mine for over 10 years and never had a problem saving and then turning it off.

Come to think of it, that's beginning to sound a bit like Counter-Strike: Source's F10 advice.