Titles that Launched the NES (& Saved an Industry) Quiz

Answer: Super Mario Bros.

In "Super Mario Bros." (1985), the evil Koopa tribe of turtles are holding the Princess Toadstool captive. The player-controlled characters of Mario and/or Luigi must climb mountains, cross seas, fend off turtle-soldiers, all while avoiding bottomless pits and black magic traps, to rescue the princess and save the Mushroom Kingdom from the Koopa King Bowser before time runs out.

"Super Mario Bros.", successor to the arcade game "Mario Bros." is one of the best-selling games of all time. (It was called "Super" because of the addition of the Super Mushroom, a power-up which increases Mario's size and makes him Super Mario.) Mario and Luigi have become the best-known characters in the history of video games.

Answer: Kung Fu

In "Kung Fu", Thomas the Kung-fu master fights his way through the five floors of the Devil's Temple in order to rescue his girlfriend Sylvia from the mysterious crime boss Mr. X. The player controls Thomas with a four-way joystick, which can be used to crouch and jump the figure, and two attack buttons to punch or kick. If Thomas rescues Sylvia, the game restarts at the next difficulty level.

"Kung Fu" was a home port of an arcade video game called "Kung-Fu Master" in the USA. It was an adaptation of the Hong Kong martial arts movie "Meals on Wheels", starring Jackie Chan. The Japanese release was called "Spartan X", but the arcade game was renamed in the USA because the movie rights could not be secured.

Answer: Baseball

If you know how to play baseball, you know how to play "Baseball": score the most runs to win the game, and avoid going out. There are six teams available to choose from. Game modes include single-player or "versus" mode.

Magazine editor Lucas M. Thomas has argued that the presence of a familiar pastime and the universal appeal of the sport of baseball were crucial to the overall success of the Nintendo Entertainment System (and indeed the video gaming industry as a whole) when it was introduced in the USA. At its launch in Manhattan, "Baseball" was played by actual Major League Baseball players, who signed autographs for fans.

Answer: Duck Hunt

In "Duck Hunt", players aim the NES Zapper, AKA the Beam Gun, at ducks in mid-flight on a CRT television screen. (The Zapper works only on standard-definition CRT screens; LCD or HDTV will not work). You must shoot a required number of targets in each round to continue the game to the next. In "Game A" mode, a second player can control the ducks, which fly one at a time. In "Game B", they fly two at a time. Or if you want something less violent, you could shoot clay pigeons in "Game C".

A brown hunting dog, a non-playing character sometimes called "Laughing Dog", provokes the ducks and also retrieves the kills. It gleefully laughs when a player fails to shoot a target! Most industry websites and magazines have called it one of the most annoying video game characters ever.

Answer: Excitebike

"Excitebike" lets a player choose from among several race tracks for their red motorcycle, which include many hazards and jumps. If the bike crashes, the player is knocked off, but he or she can get back on the bike again and finish the race. Players can race solo or against computer-controlled opponents.

"Excitebike" was among the first home-release games that allowed players to create their own levels and then play on them. It received some of the industry's highest ratings during its initial release.

Answer: Hogan's Alley

Like "Duck Hunt", "Hoagan's Alley" was one of the first Nintendo games to use a light-gun, the Zapper, aimed at a CRT screen. Cardboard targets that are a mixture of gangsters, other officers or agents, and innocent bystanders confront the player. Shooting innocent or friendly targets and failing to shoot gangsters result in penalties and "game over". In "Trick Shot" mode, players shoot soda cans and bounce them onto ledges.

Hogan's Alley was a tactical training facility for U.S. law enforcement agencies located in Quantico, Virginia. The FBI Training Academy operated it beginning in 1987 to provide a realistic urban setting for FBI, DEA, and many other federal, state, and local entities. Hogan's Alley closed several years before its NES namesake was released.

Answer: Wild Gunman

The NES "Wild Gunman" is a port of a 1974 electro-mechanical arcade game that used full-motion video footage of an American Wild West gunslinger, which the player had to shoot when the eyes flashed. The arcade version of this game appeared in a café scene in the movie "Back to the Future: Part II" (1989).

The NES version tones down the violence by using cartoon gunslingers, although the eyes still flash, and it adds a speech bubble that says "FIRE!" If the player wins the gunfight, he or she continues to the next, more skillful gunslinger. If the players loses the gunfight, the game plays Frédéric Chopin's iconic funeral march[*] as a death knell.

[*]That's the third movement ("Marche funebre: Lento") of Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35, for classical music buffs.

Answer: Stack-Up

In "Stack-Up", players control Professor Hector to make him jump on buttons that tell the R.O.B. to move his blocks into various positions around him according to the configuration on the screen.

"Stack-Up" was one of the two games made for US release that used the Robotic Operating Buddy (R.O.B.), the other being "Gyromite". It came with several plastic pieces that could be used to help the game characters stack things within the game. Because it had so many pieces, complete versions of the game are one of the rarest of the hundreds of titles that were released over the Nintendo Entertainment System's lifespan.

Answer: Ice Climber

In "Ice Climber" players can choose to control Popo, a boy in a blue parka, or Nana, a girl in a pink parka, to traverse the icy slopes. Each climber uses a wooden mallet to carve openings in the ice and to club antagonists. They can only recover vegetables, particularly eggplants, from the very peak, as a flying giant condor drops his stolen produce there.

In the original NES version, single-player mode allowed only Popo to be played, but in later iterations on successor home systems, it became possible to choose one or the other. Nana and Popo have also made appearances as both playable and non-playable characters in other Nintendo games over the years.

The exact nature of the relationship between Nana and Popo has remained a mystery and the subject of wild speculation among fans, about which Nintendo has chosen to remain silent.

Answer: Pinball

Just as in real-life pinball, players in "Pinball" activate a virtual plunger to release a ball and control simulated paddles to manipulate the ball to score points and keep it from falling into the drain. In a secondary mode, however, the player hits the ball through a bonus hole that reveals a bonus stage. Here the player controls Mario, who must rescue Pauline--the original damsel in distress of the "Donkey Kong" arcade game--by knocking blocks out from under her with the pinball and then catching her as she falls. So Nintendo actually managed to combine two arcade games into one!

Pinball games have been around since the 18th century, and they became coin-operated and electrified in the 1930s. Although video games led to the closure of the major pinball manufacturers in the 1990s, smaller companies carved out niche markets for their product well in to the 21st century.