This week in my Games and Culture class, we were tasked with exploring the UMW Console Living Room. The living room is a replica of a 1980s living room. It showcases the technology that was popular during that time. The room is really cool. I loved exploring the old technology and it was really cool to see how technology has improved since then. The picture below shows a small part of what the whole exhibit looks like.
First I played SuperMario 3 on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). I’ve alway enjoyed the Super Mario and I have been known to enjoy some Mario Kart every once and a while. In this game you move from world to world as a character named Mario who wants to save Princess Peach, who was captured by the evil Bowser.
Then I played the Super Mario Brothers, which was a throwback since Super Mario 3 came out after Super Mario Brothers. and Duck Hunt combined. I first tried duck hunt because I’ve never played that before, and I thought the light gun would be cool. Unfortunately I couldn’t get the light gun to work so I moved on to Super Mario. Super Mario is a classic game that I enjoy in any format. You move from world to world as Mario, trying to save Princess Peach.
I then played the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II (Arcade Game). I’d never heard of this game before so this was completely new for me. The basic premise is to move throughout a building to save April. You encounter the villains and you have to fight them off in order to move to the next part of the room. I really enjoyed this game! Although I didn’t really know what to do at the beginning I figured it out as I went along. I am usually just a button masher when it comes to fighting games like that. You would first start off fighting these pink villains then after a while some blue villains would pop up and then you would have to battle them and also traps. There was a staircase and giant boulders would come crashing down the stairs. This made it just a little bit harder to fight and avoid the traps at the same time. I did notice a little advertisement as you went along. There was a Pizza Hut sign in the hallway you move down. I thought that was pretty funny.
Now this picture is pretty terrible since its of the TV screen but you can kind of make out the sign from behind the line. Unfortunately I died before I could get to April but I can imagine that it would get harder and harder as you progressed along in the game.
I thought the NES design itself was pretty innovating. It was definitely smaller than the Atari 2600, which was a lot of progress for the systems. It was made of durable plastic, and it was built to last. And clearly it has because we are still using it today. The design of the console is pretty simple so it would fit into what ever living environment that it’s brought to. I really liked experimenting with the NES in the UMW Console and I look forward to using the Console more!
