416 - Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt/World Class Track Meet

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Super Mario Bros. Duck Hunt World Class Track Me! You'll have to think fast and move even faster. Your trusty hunting dog wades into the marshes to flush out your prey in this action packed game that turns your home into an exciting stadium. And welcome to Nestalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe.

And we mean every game released in North America, even if we've covered uh Super Mario Brothers now three times on this show. Uh last time it was with just Duck Hunt. This time they've added world class track meet. Before we talk about the reasoning for this or whatever, can we just quickly get out of the way how we still feel about these games? Uh anybody want to like controversially uh take Super Mario Brothers off the essential games list?

Good, good, and I don't really remember, to be honest. Yeah, I never liked any of these like track meet or track meet clone type things, but Duck Hunt is still probably the game that I play in real life the most from the NES. 'Cause it's just so easy to boot up. I've got it, I got my CRT here. Whenever I'm I'm booting up the CRT, I'm like, Well, I gotta play a little bit of duck hunt. We you boot up the C. Here's the funny thing

Yeah, sure. You could power on. Boot no, I boot it up. Goes through like a whole like uh windows. And then connect it to the internet? Yeah, yeah. The funny thing about not remembering world class track meet is that it's Also technically the third time we're talking about this game, because it was originally uh, you know, a niche little video game called Stadium Events, which now sells for like twenty-five thousand dollars complete in box.

before it was rebranded and removed from shelves as world class track meet. Yeah, that the whole Stadium of Run's controversy m really needed they really needed to take that name off of it after what happened. Right. There will be no events in stadium. Damn. Uh, but obviously if you haven't made the connection yet.

Super Mario Brothers, Duck Hunt, World Class, Track Meat. Uh it's a compilation. It's all on one cart, which is pretty impressive. But it's a compilation because it was a pack in game for a new uh NES bundle. uh that included two controllers, an NES, a zapper, and a power pad. So With the previous set of Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt, uh, you were getting a zapper with it, but you weren't getting the power pad, and that was known as the action set.

What would you call um this new set that has the uh power pad included?

The clearance set. Yeah, I'm trying to think,'cause like action, I get it. The gun it has like an action movie, a lot of guns, but like I feel like literally the power pad is probably like the most action Base peripheral you can have. This this has to be o like they just have too many power pads and they got a clean house.

Right. It is a Nintendo that that is another part of the reasoning is that if you remember it was the Family Fun Fitness Pad before Nintendo uh basically bought the rights to it and uh put the Nintendo branding all over it and rebranded it to the power pad because of course with the NES and Nintendo now you're playing with power and so giving it away, it is the power set we are talking about. Hmm. Now you're cooking with gas.

Yep. And the power set retailed for one hundred and seventy nine dollars, uh, which is four hundred and fifty five dollars in twenty twenty six. So I don't know, not unfair. I mean, uh I don't know any console today giving you three games. Two con right. Three games, two controllers, a and two accessories. Damn. Yeah, for like I mean, by your uh translation there it's for still less than like a base PS five, right? Or a or or a switch two.

Yeah. But is this the best of the pack-ins just because it adds another game? Like, does it make the most sense? Is there is there a different game? That they could Pack in whether with or without all the accessories for a better value. Like could could we have pushed for just a game. Yeah, right. Because like we're meant to be worried for this? Ever where people like, was was this on a level of Mario and Duck Hunt?

No. But don't you think that like the power pad itself still had the ethos of like this is going to be cool? Yeah, I guess if you're if you're trying to get the power pad worked in, I I see why they went. I know that we're we we kinda have some time dilation going on with like how we actually experience every release of the on this like console, but Like I it it I know you know the connect. Like I feel like this is at the time when everyone already knew that the connect was a joke.

And now Xbox is just like uh and then you get a connect with every purchase and we and then you also get the Star Wars Just Dance relea uh release. uh uh uh along with Gears of War. Like I feel like this is something along those lines. It would have been along those lines if they released uh Rob in the set as well. Like if it included a copy of Gyromite

Rob was a bundle though as well. He was uh one of the original bundles, so you could either get the uh what they called the control deck, which was two NES controllers and an NES for one hundred ninety-nine dollars. Or the deluxe set, which came with um Rob, Gyromite, Duck Hunt, and a Zapper for$299. Still pretty freaking great deal. You didn't get Mario though with that.

You didn't get Mario, no. Yeah, you got the game and some controllers and th or the system some controllers and then a game that you'll never want to play after playing it once. Assuming it works too, because uh we recently had a great experience with Rob at Long Island Retro Gaming Expo last year where the three of us and a like

Eleven year old boy who wanted me to adopt him. Uh tried to all we all tried to play with Rob and he was barely responding to our commands and it was Such a win to just clear one level of the game. Uh we we were all so proud. And uh then when we were leaving that night and we were heading back to the car, he was just waiting by the car. That was so weird. And now get him on. He's still in your house, right? Yeah.

So I guess what I was saying when it was like, do pack-ins make sense? I agree, Sean. Uh anything else but the power pad would have made sense. But it is a cool selling point. So what else would have been a great selling point? And to me the obvious thing I can think of is a Super Mario Bros. one through three collection. Now I don't think that would ever fit on one cart, so they would just sell it to you like

Here's an NES, here's two controllers, and here's Super Mario Brothers one, two, and three. But then there's the business side, unfortunately, that we have to cover here as well, of like, okay, but why would they do that, right? Like why not just release

one of those mall things where it's like an NES, two controllers and two thousand games in one. You know, it's like there's a reason why they don't do that. Well in in you know I I'm trying to I'm just right now realizing that like There's a cost a much more significant cost, I imagine, to making a cartridge than than a dip.

Where whereas'cause I was thinking like, you know, today you'll get bundles, but it'll just be like you just they just pack in four games or three games or whatever. Like fit. And they're all digital. They're digital games, right? Well that yeah, even more so today. But like I was like, Why did why would they just

Yeah, may maybe like part of the reason they're not putting bigger games in there is'cause they gotta fit as many onto one cartridge in order to keep the cost down. Uh just a total guess there. Yeah, what about like Tetris or something? That can't be that big. No, that's a good call. Tet Tetris being uh being a bundle because it was bundled with the Game Boy. It doesn't solve the problem. of clearing out your backstock of power pads, but I mean it's probably better value for the customer.

Yeah, that's a good point. If they had to make new power pads to justify this set, then from a hardware standpoint, this is a lot of hardware. Two controllers, a zapper, a power pad, but more than likely they had this shit laying around. I think so. Uh the power set also on the box says, Now you're playing with power again that uh classic slogan, but then it adds on in a whole new way. Uh where'd that come from?

Now you're playing with power in a whole new way. It's like now you're playing with power squared. Like is that what they're trying you know, like you leveled up? Like you get away with that. I I think I think it's it's like a new It's a new cartridge. Um Yeah, it's like simply those who buy this might uh the the NES might be new to them. Um Uh, you know, it could mean anything.

Yeah, or or maybe it's saying like, well, nobody ever bought this power pad ever, so it's new to everyone. Yeah, I like that.

And I guess I'll just get in front of it now, but next week we are going to cover uh another compilation game of World Cup uh and super spike V ball. And uh I have a whole nother thing slew of things to talk about in that episode. So don't worry. I'm just gonna continue on with the the bundles here. And uh this was the NES sports set bundle, which came with uh this compilation of these two sports games and NES Four controllers.

Uh, and an NES satellite, the wireless four-player uh thing that like received on to your NES so this way you could play from like very far away. And here's the real value six C battery. Wait, what A C batteries? The six of'em too. But uh the NDS satellite, I guess. Oh what are we gonna talk about next week now that you covered everything about that?

Oh, uh don't worry, I've got a whole nother thing.'Cause this whole this episode's actually gonna take a turn too. If if anybody's looking at the runtime, it's not about to end. Oh, okay. I was just looking at the runtime. Well, you're constantly looking at the runtime live. Like it looks like it's constantly. I was like, Yeah, this is the end. It's eleven minutes. Right. As of right now. Uh

But I think like, okay, so let's let's compare them right now. You got the power set, and you got the sports set and you have the previous action set. Did it ever two questions. We'll start with the first one.

Does it ever make sense to wait? Like should you have just gotten the NES as soon as possible? Or was the action set with the Super Mario Brothers duck hunt pack in the jump in point? Or are you finally getting like The best bang for your buck, even though you had to wait two extra years, and now you got either a choice of four controllers with an adapter or uh two additional accessories. Guess it really depends on the price.

But so the prices were pretty like pretty in l so the NES originally was one hundred ninety nine. Uh then the action set which comes in eighty nine was a hundred forty nine, so you only dropped fifty dollars. over four years. And then the power set and the sports set are seem to be retailing at one seventy nine and one ninety nine. So

Uh quite a Plus inflation. Quite a jump. It sounds like it sounds like, you know, if you're trying to be cost effective, you should probably wait. You should have waited for the duck hunt slash Super Mario thing. Yeah, I think to me that sounds like the best bundle because you don't have to like f figure out a place to store this power pad after you figure out it doesn't work, and you have two essential games uh right off the bat. Which two?

Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt. Oh, okay, just making sure. Yep. Uh all right, so where I'm gonna take this episode next is just uh pack in bundles

Or just like launch games in general. And I I just wanted to get from you guys, you know, because we didn't grow up with the NES. Were there ever uh consoles that you didn't buy at launch but like had a bundle and you were like, okay, now is like the time for me to jump into this console. For me, for both the PS four and the PS five, it took like a a Spider Man and Spider Man two bundle to finally like convince me to pull that trigger. So clearly like all of these

uh publishers, regardless of like, you know, how m whatever they set out to do with their launches, they've given up on the whole like and it comes with this game, right? Like that just it didn't happen with the NES and it doesn't happen now. Uh the most recent example I could think of is PS four came with Astros Playroom, which was freaking awesome, but that was digital and everything since then and kind of for a while before that wasn't like um

It wasn't a a game that a physical game that came with it that you had on day one. You ha basically had to buy this thing and then buy uh the game that you wanted alongside of it. So for The bundle question of consoles, do you remember any specific bundles that you bought growing up? Uh I mean the the the bundles still exist. It's just that they usually add the cost of the game to the cost of the bundle. Um

Right, but the bundle's also like the bundle is a is a digital game. Sure. So you want you want hard you you want a hard copy. I think I think that's what I'm thinking of is like you're getting you're getting something cool out of this. Like for instance in the power set you're also getting a a light gun and a power pad. I I I feel like you need to to sweeten the pot here a little bit. I I think uh the the the only time I ever had that, uh I got The original Xbox.

however many y is maybe a year or two years into the life cycle of that console and it came with uh GT 2002 and Jet Set Radio Future, I think. Yes, that's correct. It was one of my examples. Oh I was gonna say that like I definitely didn't um ever buy bundles, but now that you said that I do remember that my my PS two definitely came with a Gran Turismo'cause I never would have bought that game on my own and I had I mean I think it was like show the cellophane for like most of my life.

Yeah, like I don't even know if we ever like took it out, but like f I don't know, my parents must have found a deal on it when we got it for Christmas one year. Um But otherwise like I don't think I ever like sought out even like when I got a little older, like PS three came out or even PS4, I was just like The the pack in games were never like

I'm very particular with like the games I play or the movies. It's always like there's like specific things that I know I want and like it takes a lot for me to just like try some random new game. So when like The PS whatever, four or three or whatever comes out with like a kill zone game. I'm like, well, I I don't know what that is and I don't really care. Yeah, so that's like I'm sure it was good, but like I I used to killer app, Joe. That was the killer killer.

Oh yeah, that was that was what and it did. It did. Halo's go no one talks about Halo anymore. Everyone talks about Halo. Yeah. Um But yeah, I I think I just like liked more to build my own library from scratch rather than, you know, fall into it. Unless there was like a really great deal, but I don't remember

Yeah, that is about ever getting things together like that. Yeah, that was my only that that was the only time I've ever had a bundle like that. The most recent example I can think of of just a a pack in game that not only made sense, but

practically boosted the sales of the console everywhere is a console celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year, and that's the Wii with Wii Sport. There are some people who like got a Wii just to have these four sports games with motion controls and then they never bought another Wii game. Like how many how many retirement homes just have Wii sports running on a Wii still to this day? Just on. It's been on since Yeah, it never gets turned off. But you guys had Wii's or no?

I I did have a wee and yes it did come with um I mean like I think it was like my sisters, but like it was our families. And I do re yeah, I mean, I think they all came with We Sports, right? Like every single one of them. Which is why it's like the best selling game of all time or whatever. Yeah, can you count that? I mean there are some Wii's that eventually they eventually they dropped it and I think the um there was even like a Wii Mini.

that came out that I I don't know what made it a mini, like if it didn't have a disk drive or I think it actually dropped the GameCube support. There were no GameCube ports, uh, and you couldn't play GameCube games, which is like I don't know. I guess not a deal breaker for the retirement home crowd, but certainly uh would have sucked for me. Retirement home crowd, big Super Mario Sunshine fans.

I heard that. Sorry, but can you repeat your question, Mike? Uh no, did you ever own a Wii? Oh, I didn't get a Wii until twenty twenty four. Okay, great. Yeah. That's what a what a magical time for you. How have the last two years been treating you? Uh I pl I've played it like three or four times. Um as soon as I finished Uh, as soon as I finish Silent Hill uh Shared Memories it's kinda gone into storage, but

Uh that was the reason I bought it. And if you forget Pack End games for a minute and just remember that Nintendo's uh first console b even before the Famicom Dis system was one of those plug and play like T V color six and T V color fifteen uh consoles where you just plug it in and it has fifteen games in it, that's kind of That's a that's a version of a pack in.

Uh it ever had. Yeah, I think that's all it ever had. It was like that's the offering. I think that just being kinda cute with with verbiage.

And then how about like limited edition consoles? Like isn't it weird that the NES didn't get like a a color reskin or something or uh like a cool Super Mario Brothers version? Is there an official top loader NES or do I I always see like You know, there is. Oh so is that kind of that? That's a console variation. Yeah, it's like the spelled out one kinda. Yeah, yeah.

Right, which I still don't understand what that is. I think it's just a smaller Playstation. Yeah, but there's like one where I mean this is going off on a tangent, but there's there's one where you can like there's a screen that plugs into it and then you like take it on the go. I always wanted that screen. Yeah. It's probably useless and terrible terrible color and everything, but that did look cool. And why not have that on the NES too? Like why not just release an NES with a screen?

Yeah, like a little a little N E S With a sc with a screen, like a yellowish screen that could have four double A batteries. And you know that the tech existed. Like i I still see those tiny T Vs that you can get like Well that you used to be able to get like, you know, uh satellite or antenna broadcasts, uh so you could have just had like a bigger version of that that had NES hardware in it too. But so are you saying then like I mean basically something the size of an NES that has a screen.

Yeah, like a really tiny crappy five inch uh CRT television.'Cause like what would the point of that be, really? Uh just to satisfy this uh perspective thing that we're making up. Yeah.'Cause even the PS one, like, as cool as it sounded, like Where am I going that has electricity? I don't have a cv

You know what I mean? Like I'd be like, Oh I can take it on like a long car ride. No, I can't, I can't plug it in, you know. But the the the primary use of the PS one spelled out wasn't to also have that TV I don't even know if they sold that anywhere aside from like probably Japan. I'm making this up. I don't know. Right. Who even knows? It might be like a third party company made that screen. No, I swear there was an accessory.

product that was like a PS one with its own little screen, right? Am I am I making that up? Like its own its own animal. It was probably a peripheral. Like I bought a PS one. uh to have in a separate room than my PlayStation 2 at the time, I think. So Yeah, I think you're right. It is a peripheral, but it does say Sony on it. Yeah. Okay, great. Cool. So that that that d so you just debunked my part of it. You made me look stupid, but Sean looks good. As long as one of you I do look good.

Yeah. I was going for either one of you. It was nothing personal. So here's the thing about uh why not just take an NES and uh put like a screen on it? They did that. Uh it was this sharp TV that had an NES built into the bottom of it. I don't think it ever came out here. I actually don't know uh what region it came out in. Maybe it did come out here. Sharp T Vs were around around here, but uh this is an oddity for sure, and uh probably very rare and expensive. But basically it's just a

CRT, uh that looks like instead of where a VCR might be, it's an NES control deck uh that you can just pop cartridges into. And even has controller ports. So that's pretty cool. And they even follow that up for Super Nintendo. First one I found on eBay, any guesses on the price? Four hundred and ninety five dollars starting bid. Four three thousand nine hundred and ninety nine. Okay, it's between those two. Mike's a lot closer. Damn.

Twenty seven hundred dollars or best offer. So I I maybe I'll make an offer. Oh so Sean can still be close to the side. Exactly. Yeah. We don't know what the best offer is. And now Sean, you posted a picture of uh uh illegal paraphernalia here. It seems like there's some blue hedgehog or something on the screen. Uh but he's on a digital alarm clock. Uh so this is just like a radio slash TV slash alarm clock.

Great. With a five point five inch CRT television. It's color. Usually they weren't color. I remember in like two thousand and three, my dad for Christmas, my mom got him a watch that was supposed to have like It was supposed to be able to pick up T V channels. Oh wow. And I just thought that was like the coolest thing ever. I was like, What? And uh of course it never worked. But um we we were we he was close.

He was so close to the outcome. How big was it? Wasn't that big, but it had an antenna too. You had to like pull out the antenna. That is funny. Uh so talking about the limited edition consoles though, in in the true spirit of it, I was thinking about like the N sixty four version, uh, with the with Pikachu on it, where like when you power it on, which the power on is a poke ball, and then Pikachu's um

Cheeks light up when it's powered on, or the uh the the R two D two Xbox three sixty that is very like tastefully done so it still looks totally like an Xbox three sixty. They didn't reshape anything, but it's got like all the right color in the right places to basically trick you into looking like that's R2D two and it comes with a gold controller.

To uh have like C three PO next to it. Yeah. So it's very nicely done. Those are the nice limited editions. I don't think I own any nice limited editions. I own like color variants of things. I never had a uh a translucent version of a console. I know the N64 did those. I own some translucent controllers, which I think looks nice. What do you guys think of that whole translucent aesthetic? I mean I I had the atomic purple Game Boy color.

Hell yeah, brother. And then the I wanna say it was something like Arctic Freeze uh Game Boy Advance, which was like less purple, more blue. Um but in other circumstances, if we're talking about standard home uh home consoles, I think I would pay more for them not to be like super garish. Like to to be not the giant just give me a stock Playstation, Xbox, whatever. So you would prefer the first version of the PS three, which I know you own, uh, but you would take that over the slim?

Well, I do prefer that because it are it has like actual backwards compatibility in it, but uh in terms of but it weighs six hundred pounds. Yeah but like that was that was a rebrand entirely. Like there was a point where the original was the only way to to get it and then they stopped making that and now the slim was the only way you could get it

So I don't I'm saying that I would prefer to have a stock Xbox, PlayStation, whatever, than one that has Pikachu's cheeks on it. Yeah, I I think I agree too. I do like that, like the clear plastic aesthetic and everything, but it it feels like so of its time that now it's like

Oh, that's like a really cool retro design, you know? But yeah, I I do think like most of the time I look at a console and I'm like, Oh, they got it right the first time. You know, I And like I know it doesn't really it doesn't really matter at all, but in my brain I'm like, Yeah, if I had an R two D two console and I'm playing a, you know

a star or I'm playing a Harry Potter game, I'd be like, Well, this doesn't make sense. I feel like I'd o I feel like I'd only feel comfortable playing Star Wars games if I had an R two T two console. Oh so I need it to be just like a blank console. Right. So that SpongeBob Xbox One that goes for like crazy money is like useless because there's like one SpongeBob game on the side. That's exclusively a SpongeBob machine.

Yep. Um what about now what about a controller like that? Like there is a SpongeBob controller for GameCube that is crazy expensive. Would you only play a SpongeBob game with that controller? Like would you be able to play Soul Caliber Two with the Spongebob controller? Well I mean obviously I'm being like a little silly here, but like I think that it it just comes down to like even when I'm a kid, I'm like the

A PlayStation controller already looks like sleek and cool and like futury to me. You know, it's like this cool piece of tech. So like to then put e even something that I like, to put like a SpongeBob face on it, well, well now I look like a kid. Yeah. I'm an adult. Like a serious gaming system. Yeah. That's funny because My switch too I needed like a protector case for it so I could put it in my backpack while I commute and I got the the most kiddyish looking uh protector case with like

Mario, Donkey Kong, Luigi, like the whole gang just like smiling and waving at you as if it's like a lunchbox, you know, and I'm like, I'm pulling this thing out on the train next to a guy with a suit. It being a case, that's that's a little different. You know, if if it's just a console, I just feel too locked into like one theme. Nah, nah. A case, console, controller. I don't want anything on anything. No branding.

Sean, you had mentioned uh Sega GT two thousand two Jet Set Radio Future uh combo for the Xbox, and that was all on one disc too, but there was a weirder release uh combo pack for the Xbox. Do you know it? Um, I don't. It's okay, because I don't know I don't expect anyone to know this. I don't know why this exists, but it is uh Tetris Worlds, which is a pretty mediocre Tetris game. Uh combo pack with Star Wars the Clone Wars.

Huh. Can't figure out. Uh one's di one's published by THQ, the other one by Lucas Arts. Can't figure out the connection here. Um they both have uh Xbox Live. Uh so maybe it was like, oh, go online, but like who's selling Tetris Worlds as like a go online game? Well I now did did Sega make Jet set radio future? Sega did, and they also made Sega GT 2002. Okay, well that that makes sense. Well okay, so yeah, now there's no there's no precedent for this at all.

Right. And I the way I was thinking about too with Sega's thing is like a lot of people did see the Xbox as like the successor to the Dreamcast, uh, even if it was so close to it, of you know, like all the Sega Sega was putting a lot of stuff on the Xbox, so it made sense to have this double pack.

uh here, especially when the Dreamcast audience especially the people I knew who had Dreamcast, they all owned Xboxes too. So it's like you guys get together and talk? Like why do I own a GameCube? How d how do how do I like exist in a vacuum? Well you were still a kid that didn't like grown up games like Halo.

That's you know what, that's actually true, but I did eventually get not only this Sega GT two thousand two and Jetset Radio Future combo pack, I did get Halo and I did play it, and I did remember thinking that this is awesome because I had never really played first person shooter before that. Uh and then the final level with the Warthog, I was like, oh, this sucks.

You remember that? That was like really difficult to control i whatever it was with the Warthog controls and it was like that was really difficult on the original Xbox to like Maneuver that. No, no, no. You just you just had to get the the feel of it, man. It's all about vibe. I know, I think I was just trying to like brute force my way through everything. Mm-hmm.

The Xbox wound up paying off for itself though because that's where I experienced Knights of the Old Republic, which uh when I finished that game I remember saying this is my favorite video game of all time. Hell yeah, brother. Co torped. No longer that, but it was there for a little bit. All right, I think I've ran out of things to ramble about. Um Unless you guys want to s go back to Super Mario Brothers Duck Hunt World Class Track Me, do we wanna Close the loop.

Yeah, I mean should we should we all just quickly say that it's not applicable for the Essential Games list during the Essential Games list vote? Yeah, should we just like do like a little legal ease here and do it really fast, you know? Yeah, yeah. Make them Super My Brothers Duck on World Class Track Meet is currently not applicable for the Essential Games list. Yeah, perfect. Consult your doctor if you're allergic to Super Myer Bros. They'll speed that up, right?

I'll try my best. Joe was talking over me. Uh that's what I do. No, but you did that on purpose. This way some people couldn't hear in, so it sounded faster because they were like, Hey, what's that other guy saying? Yeah. Uh all right. Next week it's all about sports games. Because we're covering Super Spike V-Ball, Nintendo World Cup. Uh so gentlemen and listeners, get ready to talk about all things sports video game. ok