Jan. 26th, 2024

bluelander: Blue round creature with big eyes, a big red smile, and two small stubby appendeges (Blue Lander)
There are lots of youtube channels I get excited about when I see they release a new video, but the only thing I consider "appointment viewing" is Jeff Gerstmann's Ranking the NES series. I don't consume nearly as much video game content as I used to, and Jeff's the only ex-Giant Bomb host I kept watching after that whole thing imploded, but his solo old game videos were my favorite thing on GB after Mario Party Party, and I'm really glad Patreon is allowing him to continue doing what he does. Every Friday for the last 6 months, Jeff's been playing and ranking game for the NES, licensed and unlicensed, with the goal of eventually ranking every game released in the US. As of today he's ranked 178 games, an average of 7-8 per episode. He streams them live on Twitch then uploads the video to youtube. He streams while I'm at work, so I don't get to watch live, but I wouldn't have 3 uninterrupted hours to watch anyway. It's always the video I look forward to watching when I get home from work.

He doesn't play every game to completion, but he plays enough to get a feel for them, at which point he ranks them on a list. It always feels like he gives every game a fair shake, and he tries to be as true to his own taste and intuition as possible. He's been let down by games he remembered loving as a kid, and pleasantly surprised by games that are legendarily bad. For example, Spelunker, a game famous for being shitty, made it all the to #110. So far. It's sure to go down as he ranks more games, but he found something to appreciate in it. It sucks, but I like it.

I'm not really watching to see if he agrees with my opinions though, I'm watching because he plays everything thoughtfully and has something interesting to say about each game. I'm also discovering a lot of games I missed. The NES was my first game machine, and I had a shoebox full of games at one point (until the power supply died and my parents sold all my games đŸ˜¢) but I came nowhere close to seeing the full library; even now, 30 years later, there are games I've never seen before, there are games Jeff has never seen before, and it's always exciting when he uncovers a good one. You can see the full ranking list at 8bitnintendo.science (maintained by a fan) if you're just curious about the rankings.

My favorite NES game is The Guardian Legend (I named myself after a character from it.) He hasn't played that one yet, but he has played Gun-Nac, an incredible shmup made by the same developers that I was previously completely unaware of. I knew the name, and I assumed it was a shmup, but I had no idea it was so good. Jeff was coming to it as a sequel to Zanac, a game he loved as a kid, so we both appreciated it from different angles. I don't know if he'll end up liking TGL; the action-adventure segments might not be his thing, and that'll be fine. I'm sure he'll appreciate the craft that went into it, even if it doesn't rank that highly.

I've been thinking of stealing the idea and doing a ranking of Atari 2600 games. I never had an Atari as a kid, and when I played at the homes of friends and family, it was always just the handful of big hits, so I don't have much nostalgia for it, but it might be interesting to watch someone look at them with fresh eyes. I have a full 2600 rom set (which isn't hard, it's only 20MB; everyone should have one!) and I poke at it occasionally, and I've found some hidden gems. One favorite Pressure Cooker, an activision game that set the template for high-pressure cooking games like Diner Dash and Overcooked, and I still think it's a lot of fun today. Another one I like is Cosmic Commuter (also by activision. They made a lot of great games in the early 80s. Not so much today) where you pick up passengers in a space bus. There need to be more games about mass transit.

Would they rank higher than Pitfall! and Yars' Revenge? Probably not, I'd have to do the science to be sure, but if not they wouldn't be far behind. Most people probably think of the 2600 as having a couple good games and mountains of trash—E.T. was turned into a literal mountain of trash—but I think the library deserves a closer look. (In an emulator, with a real controller. Let's not be silly.)

I got back into LPs for a little while last year but kind of petered out. I was in the middle of Magic Knight Rayearth for the Saturn, which is a cute game with great music, but unfortunately I found playing it a lot duller than I remembered. Maybe I can dip my toes back in by ranking some 2600 games. They could be a lot shorter than the NES ranking videos, and shorter than the kind of stuff I usually play. Maybe I could find time for like, an hour a week. Shrug

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