Madden Football 92: 1HN Friend Cash Pool

This blog entry is not as much a review of Madden Football 92 for the Genesis as a recollection of personal events related to the game. Mind you (the reader), I played Madden 92 numerous times with my friends Ed and Tim (who are brothers), so this game is indeed 1HN (first-hand nostalgia) for me. But, what makes this game stand out in my mind is the circumstances under which we purchased it.

It was fall of 1991, and Ed and I were seniors in high school. It was one of those Saturdays when my mom and dad let me crash at Ed's house. There were many great things about crashing at his house: I could be loud if I wanted; his parents were very easygoing; Ed was simultaneously hilarious and mildly irritating; and, Ed had a Sega Genesis. In those days, I still had my NES, but had given up on it because, hey, I was in high school and I didn't have time for that "kiddie stuff." Having said that, the Genesis was certainly NOT kiddie stuff; this was a serious cutting-edge gaming console. I remember the day when Ed brought over the Genesis with Altered Beast to my house. I was blown away, to say the least.

Anyway, I was hanging out with Ed and his family when Ed started to scheme. See, he and Tim knew that Electronic Arts had released Madden Football 92 for the Sega Genesis and they were pooling their cash to buy it. They were a bit short on cash, but I had some. I think now that it was odd that I willingly contributed a share of cash to help them buy a game I couldn't play at my own home, but I quite enthusiastically offered to pay a third of the cost just so that they could buy the game that night. With sufficient funds in hand, Ed, Tim, their dad, and I piled into their dad's battleship of a brown station wagon and made the five-mile journey to some mom-and-pop video and game store.

When we arrived, I noted the dark-wooded trim of the mini-mall dating back to the late 1970s. After we parked, Ed made a beeline into the store where the game was located. I looked around inside the store and considered the relatively small space. There were videos and games lining the walls. I remember thumbing through some CD singles where I found "Nobody's Fool" by Kenny Loggins, which was the main theme from Caddyshack II. I put the single aside and turned to watch as Ed and Tim purchased Madden 92. Ah, our prize... Finally in our grasp!

I remember getting to hold it and looking at the blue-bordered front cover of the cartridge box. There was John Madden with his Super Bowl ring and microphone, mugging for the camera as if he had just finished some color commentary. I also recall going back to Ed's house and waiting eagerly as Tim inserted the cartridge into their Genesis.

Madden Football 92 for the Genesis was a wonderful pick-up-and-play football simulation that amounted to hours and hours of fun. Ed and Tim used to record statistics when they pitted specific teams against other teams. They even kept season standings as if they were NFL commissioners. I marveled at the stats they would keep and their diligence in recording those stats. I could never be so motivated to retain stats from a sports game like they did, though I would certainly fret over rosters in other sports games. In any case, Madden 92 represented for me how video games could bring friends together and, ironically, encourage social interaction. Ed and I used to spend hours playing or watching games, goading each other or laughing at the ridiculous plays that the Genesis CPU would conjure out of thin air. Did Ed ever pay me back, I wonder... Even if he didn't, it was worth the cash just to spend time with my friends.

Doorways to Adventure: 1HN Treasure Hunting, VHS-style

Back in the 1980s, you got to watch the latest movies either on cable TV or by renting the VHS cassette at a local video rental store. I am not including laserdisc or Betamax because hardly anyone owned either medium and Betamax died in the early 80s. Anyway, if you didn't have cable TV, you watched movies on VHS. In the mid-80s, Pressman, among other companies, came up with an intriguing idea: instead of using a video-cassette recorder (VCR) to just watch movies, why not create games that use VHS cassettes, along with game cards and other realia? At the time, this was a novel idea; yeah, we had Atari, Intellivision, and Colecovision (until the NES emerged in 1985), so using a TV for interactive entertainment wasn't entirely new, but using a VCR for a game was unexplored territory.

In 1986, for Christmas, I asked for two games that incorporated VHS: Doorways to Adventure and Doorways to Horror, both created by Pressman. My parents gave me Doorways to Adventure, and I am glad they did. Doorways to Adventure is actually a rather straightforward game: the object of the game is to obtain the highest combined value of treasures by the time the VHS tape ends. Let me describe the format for you. First, you watch the first segment on the tape, which was some amusing or overly dramatic scene from some classic B-level adventure or action movie (such as Abbott and Costello clips). As you watch the movie clip, you are told that there is a particular kind of treasure on which you were to bid, be it precious metals, an art object, a deed to property, or jewelry. Next, you are told that you have to pay a ransom in the form of food, clothing, a shield, or other object (in the context of gameplay, these ransom objects are special blue-backed cards you retain in your hand). If you do not possess the appropriate ransom card, you must pay a bribe from a pool of money you are given at the start of the game. After you have either paid the ransom or bribe for the object, all players put out bid cards (special yellow-backed cards) face-down and then flip the cards simultaneously. Whoever has the highest bid wins the object. After the winning player receives a treasure card corresponding with the object, someone rolls a special color-coded die; the VHS cassette is then fast-forwarded to the next clip with a "doorway" title screen with the same color as what was was rolled. These steps are repeated until the end of the tape is reached. I could go in-depth about the prevalent strategies in the game, such as which kinds of treasure are more advantageous to obtain or the role of the "Key" and how to steal it, but the basic gist of the game is that you try to end up with highest total value of treasure, all the while bidding against other players and watching some hilariously cheesy movie clips of movies dating from the 1930s to the 1970s.

For a 12-year-old, Doorways to Adventures was undeniably fun, but I faced one problem: I was an only child, which meant I didn't have brothers or sisters that I could ask/compel to play with me. Also, my parents weren't the gaming types; they much preferred watching TV or hanging out with their friends when they chose to do so. With this in mind, I didn't have a ready pool of opponents against which I could play. I did have my friend Brian, who was game to play a few times; but, beyond him, the landscape of prospective competitors was barren and lifeless. Thus, the game was largely unplayed and remained in my closet for several years until it was packed up with my other board games and put into storage at my grandma's house.

A few years ago, I rediscovered the game in my grandma's rafters and showed it to my sons and wife. My sons were intrigued, so I relearned the game and played it with them. At first, my sons were confused by the rules, but they caught on quickly and were outbidding each other (and me) by the time we passed through the first few doorways. They began to grasp the concept that, for example, getting a bunch of Precious Metals was more profitable than focusing on Art Objects in the long run. They also enjoyed stealing the Key from each other and stealing treasure from each other whenever one spotted water or fire in a movie clip (note: there are "Steal Treasure with Water" and "Steal Treasure with Fire" cards that allow you to take an opponent's treasure if water or fire are present in the movie clip). We eventually roped my wife into playing a game with us, which can last two hours. Despite the length, when we all have the time to play, we are consistently amused and bemused in equal measure as treasures are gained and lost with alarming regularity.

Doorways to Adventure is an integral part of my family's game rotation, though the game length can be incredibly protracted if bidding and stealing become fierce. This is so much so that whenever one of us suggests that game for Family Night, the other three of us will cringe, look at the clock, and say, "That game takes TOO long." Nonetheless, Doorways to Adventure is one of those games, along with some of my NES games, that is seeing new life now because, unlike the time of my youth, I have a pool of people with whom I can play. Whenever I have the time and mental space to play Doorways to Adventure, I feel like the 12-year-old inside of me gets to do what he never got to do in 1986: play his games with other people. Considering that, I implore you, the reader, to hold onto, or find, your old games because someday you may have a new generation of opponents with whom to play right under your own roof.

The Legend of Zelda: 1HN Epic Questing

What else can be said about The Legend of Zelda on the NES that hasn't been said? It was a genre-defining RPG? It was a wonderfully rich game from a time when such games were rare on consoles? It has two of the most well-known videogame characters out there today -- Link and Zelda? It was easy to learn and fun to play, and yet difficult to solve and challenging to beat? All of these things have already been said, so what would the point be in writing a blog review about this game? Well, there's one reason why I'd write such a blog entry: because, like most blogs, this blog is self-indulgent, right? (wink)

Humor aside, The Legend of Zelda was one of the most important games in my collection and represents the hours of fun I spent playing it. If I remember correctly, my first introduction to The Legend of Zelda was through my friend Brian, who lent it to me in 1987. I don't remember much about how I felt playing the game, though I do remember how colorful and thick the manual was and how informative the enclosed map was. I also remember when, quite accidentally, I pressed down on the game inside my NES console to release the game without turning the power off, which wiped all the data out of memory, including Brian's saved games! When I return the games to him, he was visibly distraught. However, when I got back the Lone Wolf books I had lent him (I'll write a blog entry on these books in the future) and noticed how white-lined and bent-up the spines were, I felt that by accepting my damaged books I had paid my penance for my sad mishap. In any case, I learned a crucial lesson: turn the power off BEFORE you eject a game cartridge.

I ended up getting The Legend of Zelda for Christmas in 1988. I still have the cartridge in all its gold-plated glory, though I cannot find the manual or the map. Recently, I started up a new campaign in the game and made it through the first dungeon. As I played the game, I noted how fun it was to go from screen to screen and blasting baddies with my sword (note: you can "blast" your foes with distant sword shots if Link is at full strength), but I also noted how Link seems to move as if stuck to a grid, which can render fighting more challenging than it should be, and makes dying an all-too common occurrence. I remember beating this game in four games, but I've already died six times in my current campaign! So, it's an understatement to say that The Legend of Zelda is hard.

Even in this day and age of graphically-amazing games, I would heavily recommend The Legend of Zelda as it is on the NES. The graphics are quaint and suitable for younger kids, and even the skeletons and ghosts look "cute." Of course, if you have a conviction against such creatures in a game, then I would consider the appearance of such foes as a chance to discuss if such creatures exist. The one thing I get from this game, though, is that Link is a hero who is on a quest to rescue the princess. There aren't many missions purer than that.