Hungry Goriya Used Acquire – NES

This is the fifth post in a series called “Hungry Goriya Used Acquire” that serves to highlight the contents of a large game collection I procured from an old high school friend of mine, Joe.  Read here for the backstory.

Ah yes, the foundational springboard system of success for Nintendo!  My family owned an NES in my childhood, and I have some very fond memories and nostalgia associated with that ugly grey box with its squeaky door flap and winking red light.  Joe’s collection yielded a number of interesting things that I did not already have previously.  Onwards!

Probably the biggest acquisition from this portion of the game lot was a boxed NES console.  If you follow me in Twitter, you may recall I once posted a photo long ago of my own Action Set from childhood complete in its box, but this one from Joe came with the Power Pad and is aptly named the Power Set.  The box is considerably larger than that of the Action Set to accommodate the extra accessory.  You can see in the photo below that the box has some wear and tear from age, but it came with everything it advertised and then some!

As always, I was happy to see the manuals, inserts and posters, especially those having to do with Nintendo Power.  Nintendo pushed Nintendo Power so hard with every single product release, and they often did a special game-specific art to hook you into a subscription (I don’t know how my parents ever resisted.)  This became more popular with releases on later systems,  though you can see a Nintendo Power magazine advertisement on the far left in the photo above.  Very alluring!  Along with the zapper, controllers and other manuals for various parts of the set, there were two posters included as well: one for (you guessed it!) Nintendo Power and the other for game show games of all things.  I was chuckling to myself looking at the game show poster since I don’t remember any of my friends having a copy of Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune back in the 90s.  To be honest, I’d love to give those games a whirl today to see what the puzzles and questions are like, especially Jeopardy!

The copy of Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt/World Class Track Meet looks as if it had never even been removed from the NES until I pulled it out, and its manual was also in pristine condition.  We still need to fire this one up to test that it’s working, but everything looks so unused that unless there was some horrible manufacturers defect, it’s likely fine.  If we give the power pad a whirl sometime, I’m looking forward to pounding it with my fists like so many evil children/people avoiding exercise before me.  It should be a fun time.

Along with the boxed console came another boxed item, the NES Advantage.  For anyone that might not know, this accessory was a joystick that was compatible with the NES with Turbo capability.  I personally prefer the standard controller to this, but my boyfriend and his love of arcade games will surely appreciate this accessory while playing some appropriate games.  I can’t imagine playing something like Super Mario Bros. 2 with this beast, but the box boasts about how you can defeat fire breathing dragons with it…

Truly, I’d like to read the author of this caption.  It’s so exciting!

Reading the box piqued my interest in the exclusive slow motion control.  I wonder how that works!  It sounds like the only way I might ever get through Gradius without pulling all my hair out.  Below, you can see the NES Advantage in all its glory, including more Nintendo Power propaganda.

The NES games we received were all loose in great condition, and most were common.  I was especially excited to see Hydlide and Bartman Meets Radioactive Man since I’ve been dying to try those out.  Another thing in this collection I’d never seen before was a standalone version of Duck Hunt.  I’ve seen Super Mario Bros. by itself, but never Duck Hunt without a companion game on the same cartridge.  I’m sure there’s no difference between the two versions, but it’s still fun to see all the different iterations of a particular game.  Mechanized Attack is a rail shooter zapper game I’d never heard of before now, but I’d like to try it out.  It actually looks fun!

Related but also unrelated was a watch we got with a Super Mario Bros. 3 game on it.  The battery is dead and you need a virtually microscopic screwdriver to get into the back of it to change the battery, so I have no idea if it actually works.  I think it’d be awfully weird to bring this to a watch repair shop, so it might stay unworking for eternity.  The watch also comes with one of those plastic wristbands that likely makes your wrists smell awful if you sweat even a little.  It’s certainly not something I would wear in real life, and it honestly barely fits my adult wrist.  It’s still pretty cute though, despite having the scariest version of Mario I’ve ever seen, what with his black sclerae and maniacal smile and all!

Speaking of appendages and accessories for them, we also got a Power Glove!  Unfortunately it’s unusable because it didn’t come with any sensors, but it’s still a lot of fun to have and see in the flesh.  I have pretty small hands and it’s quite big on me , so I’m not quite sure how kids would’ve fit into this gargantuan thing!  As well, we got a second NES console that was not boxed but came with its cords and a controller.  You can see the power glove ignoring all rules of personal space below with the lone console.

That just about does it for what we got from Joe’s collection for the NES.  These items are a wonderful addition to our collection, and it was honestly so great to finally get an NES Advantage, a Power Glove, and a Power Pad.  The new games we didn’t previously have will also be fun to try out, especially the Simpsons game!  I’ve heard such good things about it, and after playing Bart vs. The Space Mutants/The World, I could really use a go at a decently good game from that franchise.

I hope you’re all having an excellent Hump Day.  Thanks for reading!

-GG