This was a case of Nintendo jumping on its own bandwagon. So do you want to know what this is? It is a cheap piece of plastic that holds your NES controller. ~J.A. Laraque

The NES bandwagon

When the NES really hit its stride everyone wanted a game on it or an accessory for it. It was like creating a commercial that could be played 24 hours a day directly to a kid’s brain. Seriously, as much as I was into NES and their games I did not know about half of the companies that rushed out a game just so they could say they have a title on the NES and that goes for accessories as well. Here is a small list of games and accessories that jumped in when they probably should have stayed out.

Barbie

This was the perfect example of a game executive saying that we need a “game for girls” and what else represents the modern girl than Barbie right? This game was just bad and kind of insulting. The whole game is Barbie dreaming about being invited to some Fantasy Ball and she has nothing to wear and has to travel to places like the Mall World to get clothes and accessories for her outfit so she can impress Ken. How do you lose? You have to avoid obstacles, like breaking your heels I guess, and if you hit too many you wake up and return to the awful reality that is Barbie’s life, oh wait.

NES Speed Board

This was a case of Nintendo jumping on its own bandwagon. So do you want to know what this is? It is a cheap piece of plastic that holds your NES controller. Now the idea was you could press buttons faster, but then again look at the picture on the box. You can’t even hold the controller right, so I guess if you are an Ape this is a good thing, but for any self-respecting gamer it is a piece of crap. For shame Nintendo, for shame!

Where’s Waldo

More like where is the integrity of the Nintendo seal of quality? Here you have Where’s Waldo which in the 90’s was a very popular book. Just on its face the idea of turning it into a video game was bad since you pretty much just looked for Waldo in a maze of people and objects on a page. In the game you are trying to send Waldo to the moon which I guess makes sense since the moon is pretty baron and Waldo is probably suffering some form of stress from always being surrounded by so many people akin to a hoarder trapped in their home. The major issue here was the graphics which were so bad you often could never tell Waldo from the other sprites on the level. This was most certainly a graphically challenged bandwagon game.

U-Force NES Controller

Strangely enough the Wii most likely came from this accessory, but back in 1989 when this came out it was bad. The idea behind the U-Force was that you could be part of the game using infrared technology to read your hand and body movements. One of the games it was supposed to be so awesome with was Mike Tyson’s Punchout where you were to feel like you were really fighting. The problem was even the main game hardly played well and most other NES titles could not work at all with the U-Force. This really was the type of controller that was created just so you could waste your money on it and impress your friends for the five seconds they looked at it. Yes, it “looked” cool, but once you played it, it was complete crap.

There are a ton more games and accessories including a list of accessories I found in places like grocery stores and gas stations so keep checking back for the next installment.

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