As always this time of year I've been playing my NES for a few weeks in the morning. It has become increasingly harder though because my bootleg Ninja Cleaner broke down last year and the official NES cleaner simply isn't as good. More difficult to clean the system as a result but I have been successful playing some games anyway by taking out and inserting the game again and again.

This morning I decided to fire up Contra, or Probotector as it's known over here. Only meant to play a few levels but I ended up playing through the whole game It's not that long anyway.

So yeah, I can now officially say I have beaten Contra before breakfast using the 30 life code -What?

Ah yes the Konami Code that made Contra beatable! I too used that code to beat Contra and I feel no shame in doing it .

NES story time!


I've been having issues with my beloved childhood NES ever since my off-brand cleaning device broke as that was the thing that was essential for the system to work. I haven't found a replacement and I suspect I'm not the only one who's discovered that it's way better than Nintendo's official product.
I tried getting it to work this morning but to no avail, so I fired up the second NES I have that I got as a backup (yup; you know me!). That one worked first try so I played Contra through.

Just now I decided to take my own NES apart again to see if I could clean the internal contacts. This is a risky thing as the screw heads might be damaged and thus impossible to remove and also the plastic they latch on to might give, so I always have to be careful.

I didn't find the contacts too dirty but I got a little bit off and after some fiddling I got the shield underneath back and the connector. Everything but the top shield and the lid itself. I also didn't screw all the screws back, only two in order to provide at least some sturdiness. Plugged it back in and popped in Contra.

It worked! First try! I'm always scared damaging something when I take it apart like this but it all worked fine. I also tried two other games and I did have to fiddle with them a bit before they worked but at least that's much easier now when the lid and top shield are easy to remove. I think I'm gonna leave them loose from now on actually. I would much like it to be all back as it should but if it at least work I can live with it. No idea screwing it all back as having it off makes it easier to clean the contacts with another part of the cleaning kit I have.

You can take apart a Nintendo? But you can do this because you have a spare. Gooeness. How many consoles do you have?

Me: Atari 2600 (it's in a box. Probably still works, just need an old CRT TV to find out)
... Nintendo, although I forget if it's NES or SNES
... Playstation 2
.... two Playstation 3s (one is kaput)
... Xbox 360

I skipped the Xbox 1 / PS4 generation. Maybe I'll get one of those too someday.

Sure. The NES is just screwed together with Philips screws.


Yeah, but also because I've done it before so I'm somewhat confident in doing it. And since it wouldn't work anyway I took the risk.


Two NES, one Mega Drive (Genesis), one xbox 360, one original Game Boy, two clear Game Boy and one Game Boy Light

whoa whoa whoa you have an Xbox? 360??? What do you play on that? Any Bethesda games? Don't tell me you've still got that all contained in its original box!

No kidding, you have a Sega as well.

I got the Xbox three years ago. My boss's kid was about to just throw it away and even though I told him to sell it and get whatever he could for it, he'd just go nah. So instead of letting him throw it away, I took it off his hands. I've never played it and it didn't come with a Beth game or anything interesting. And even if it did, I prefer the PC.

When it comes to consoles I just prefer the NES and Contra/Probotector is something I can always pop in and have a go at!

I see. Well if you ever get interested and want to know anything about your free Xbox, I can help.

So Khajiit and Mrs. Khajiit started watching the Star Wars movies in order starting on May 4th because apparently we are suckers for fake holidays. Anyway, as we were watching the pod-racing sequence in The Phantom Menace, Khajiit got a strong desire to play the N64 classic Star Wars: Episode 1- Podracer. As soon as we get the interwebz out where we live now, Khajiit might get it from GOG.

I think I still have that one on disc, from way back in the day.

I've got a 360 too. Well, we technically have two of them but the older one is currently off-line (CDROM not working). We have to share the remaining one. Plenty of games on it still. We saw no reason to upgrade to One (other than to lighten our wallets which we declined).

What? The Star Wars prequels are on N64??

I only remember the podracing game. The Naboo starfighter was an unlockable fighter in the excellent Rogue Squadron, but that game was set during the Galactic Civil War era. I don’t remember any other prequel games on N64.

As it's once again Easter I decided to try and fire up my old NES, this being a tradition around this time of year. It's a finicky system to say the least, even back in its heyday, so I didn't have much hope. That was lost a couple years back when my cleaner thing broke which was essential for making it work. I did try anyway and this is what happened.


I first tried Battle of Olympus, a game I never played a whole lot and was never any good at. No dice. All I got was a grey screen and nothing else. So I tried with the first Mega Man. Still nothing. Probotector (Contra)? No. Bubble Bobble? Pffh.

At this point I was about to give up. Without that cleaner I'm basically screwed and I can't seem to find another. Then the idea of blowing into the cartridge hit me. It's what we all used to do back in the day but what's nowadays frowned upon as you don't really want the moist from your breath to get into the system and potentially make it start rusting. Maybe not that big of a risk, but since there are better ways to make it work no one is doing it these days. But I thought hey, it doesn't seem to want to work anyway so why not go for a Hail Mary? So I got the Probotector (Contra) cartridge, blew into its contacts, inserted it into the system and pressed On. It worked! It totally worked, first try! It didn't even give up after a few seconds so I had to redo it! I ended up using the Konami code and played through the whole game. So once again I can say I beat Contra before breakfast


After all this it was time to stop and go get breakfast. Being who I am though I just had to try Battle of Olympus again, just to see if the magic worked again which I honestly didn't expect. But it did! I blew into the contacts like ye olde days and yes; the game started on the first try!


What can we all make of this then? Two things I reckon; never give up and perhaps us kids weren't that daft after all....

I wonder if air duster would work in place of blowing on it with your breath?

Khajiit started his first serious playthrough of Super Metroid on the Switch via the SNES online app. The platforming is a bit annoying at times, and I seem to be stuck in an area I can’t get out of, but otherwise, not a bad time!

I was just going to suggest blowing in the cartridge, lol. My last memories of NES were of the requirement of blowing them out in order to resurrect the Mario Brothers, lol. Really wish Nintendo would make the game backwards compatible on the new consoles (but without updating the games), lol.

Well, you can play them on their latest console, the Switch, but you have to have an internet connection and a monthly subscription that costs around $4. Also there are the NES Minis that you can buy that are basically just a miniature version of the NES (complete with full size controllers) that come preloaded with a bunch of games to play. You simply connect them to a modern tv with an HDMI cord, plug in the ac cord and off you go!

Ooh, I didn't know about any of this! Thanks Khajiit!!!

Don’t mention it! Also, I just noticed that the price of the mini consoles is rather high right now ($212.99 on Amazon) so I’m not sure how “worth it” they are.
If you don’t already have a Switch, you can get a brand new Switch Lite for less than you can the mini console ($198.29 on Amazon), but you will only be able to use it in handheld mode. The normal Switch console is selling for $299.95 on Amazon.

Whether or not the NES mini is worth it is of course totally based upon the games preloaded and your preference. So make sure you look it up before buying.

Indeed. Good advice.

It comes with 30 games which isn't bad but frankly I'm quite disappointed with the selection. I guess they had to go with Nintendo titles only or something but it's a shame how many awesome games were excluded. I do like the save feature it has though.

Mind you I haven't actually gotten the mini, this is just me talking about what I've heard about it.

I have an SNES mini that I keep at mom’s house for when I’m over there without my Switch, but did not get a NES mini as I didn’t really get serious with video games until the SNES, even though we did have an NES.

Games included on the NES mini: Super Mario Bros 1, 2, 3 and Mario Bros Dr. Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, and Donkey Kong Jr., Mega Man, PAC-MAN, Final Fantasy, Metroid, Kirby Adventure, Castlevania, and Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, Ninja Gaiden, Punch OUt Featuring Mr. Dream, Balloon Fight, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Excitebike, Ice Climber, Kid Icarus, Double Dragon II: The Revenge, Bubble Bobble, Tecmo Bowl, Super C , Galaga, StarTropics, Ghosts'n Goblins, and Gradius.

Not complete by any stretch of the imagination, but it has all of the games *most* people would want. A pretty good lineup, all in all.

Yeah I guess it's not that bad. Some really good classics in there. Though I honestly have no idea what the heck Techmo Bowl is doing there instead of like the original Contra

I think the game called “Super C” is a Contra game. Techmo Bowl is an American football game that was pretty popular here in the States, naturally.

Yeah, Super C was the followup to Contra. Haven't played it myself but it looks just as great if not greater. I just think the original is such a classic

Yeah, it does surprise me that the original wasn’t included. I don’t remember ever playing a Contra game, but it is a well regarded series.

I've been playing Dr. Mario every other day now, it's pretty addictive. Sadly I don't play my original cartridge as I got rid of that when I was young and dumb. Same with a few other games. I also just now played Probotector (Contra) again and as always with the 30 life code. But the thing is, this is the one time I wouldn't have to put the code in as I somehow managed to play quite good and when it was all over I had 33 lives left!

I did mess up at a couple of places where I usually don't mess up (typical) but I still managed to beat the game within the 3 lives you get at the start plus any additional from accumulating points. I didn't start to lose lives until stage 6 (out of 8) so up until that point I had Spread! I also didn't die at any point during the final boss and by then I just had the starting weapon. I've noticed this also with Sunset Riders; when I play Billy who has the six-shooter I always play better than when I have Carmine (?) who has the shotgun with great spread. I'm more focused and careful when I actually need to aim

Contra and Super C were pretty good, though Alien Wars wasn't too bad either.

Especially for ol’ ‘Rocu:

Why Retrogames Look Better on CRT TVs

That illustrates the point I always try to make; just because something new comes around, the old isn't necessarily redundant

Played some Dr Mario last night on my NES. I'm out of cleaning stuff so it was a bit tricky getting it to work and I didn't get Probotector (Contra) to work. I'll sort it out asap.

The NES is great, I just wish it wasn't this difficult. And it was like this back in the day just as well simply because of its design. But I like it and I'll give it the care it needs


Edit: Got another cleaning solution in the meantime and it worked fine as well. Got Probotector to work and beat it and I think it was my best run ever. Yes I do start with the 30 lives code but after the final boss and the game started over I was at 32

NES


My go-to game ten years ago was Bubble Bobble but now I've been playing Dr. Mario on a regular basis for some time as I just love that type of puzzle. I always start on level 10 and Medium speed and go up to level 19 where I usually fail because the viruses are very high up and I can't click fast enough. But just now I actually managed to do that, and I was lucky, so I passed that level and got to level 20 where I did indeed fail. I can do that level on Slow but not on Medium and how some people can do it on Fast is well beyond my comprehension

My mom used to stay up late playing Dr.Mario on Gameboy. I never did acquire a taste for games like that though.

Dr. Mario (NES)

Level: 20
Speed: Med


Level cleared


I finally beat level 20 on medium difficulty that net me a scene with the viruses sitting on top of a tree while a Protoceratops flies across the screen in an egg. No, I'm not drunk. I think

Didn’t Bubble Bobble have a weird dinosaur critter that would fly across the screen and kill you?

Baluga. It's the skeleton of a whale actually


Never did play Dr. Mario on Gameboy btw. I wonder how it is considering the Gameboy games only had four shades of green

I have now played the NES almost daily and I've gotten it to work first try every single time without even having to clean anything.

I just write this down to remind my future self; insert the game and yank it to the right slightly and that should do it.


Result may vary...

Decided to play some of the original Super Mario Bros. on my NES that I got for Christmas all those decades ago. Sadly it wasn't the same cartridge, but the hardware is!

Got up to the castle in 5-4 which I had some trouble with since Mario was small and there's a lot of hazards at the end. Managed it finally but decided to call it quits when level 6-1 started. Only wanted to sample the game a bit since it's Christmas. I was never good at this game anyway

It’s ok, the Princess was in another castle anyway.

Yeah. You gotta know when to just call it quits sometimes and go do something else

Just played some fun NES; Wrecking Crew, Mario Bros (NOT Super Mario Bros) and Wild Gunman.


Wrecking Crew was never part of my life back in the day but that game is what I consider to be a REAL video game for some reason. Simple, solid fun with some good challenge.

Mario Bros is quite good fun too and it uses the same terminology as Wrecking Crew; phase instead of stage or level. The version of Mario Bros I prefer is the 1993 Classic Game because of its improvement control wise. It also features some instructions before a new enemy appears, something the original from 1983 didn't.

Wild Gunman, now THIS is a fun game! It uses the Zapper (or Lightgun) and you can choose between one or two bandits at the same time, or a bunch of them. The trick is to only shoot the ones the say "FIRE!" within an allotted time which is anything between 0.40 secs and 1.60 secs. I chose two bandits this session as one is just too easy.
The way I play is with the gun pointed at the TV, right in the middle of the bandits. I look at their times to see which one to target first, then I look down the sights while still holding the gun between the bandits and wait for them, or just one of them, to say "FIRE!"

My best time first bandit: 0.25 secs
My best time second bandit: 0.38 secs

I played 100 rounds of this and surprisingly I won all of them! Though at one point I almost shot one that didn't say "FIRE!" since it was the first time and I had semi forgotten that sometimes happen.

Tidbit: I have both the grey and orange Zapper and for this session I picked the orange one.


But yeah; even in 2025 the NES can still provide some real good fun!

Provided you clean the system once in awhile. Hit a snag today when trying to play some Ice Climber. The cart simply wouldn't work no matter what I did. Cleaning it didn't change anything. So I tried Probotector (Contra) and got it to work so I played it through, still a fun game! But going back to Ice Climber still didn't work so I cleaned the NES itself a bit and yeah, there was some gunk in there. Enough to blacken up the qtips anyway. After that it all worked fine again, first try.

This is why I don't screw the lid back on the system but just put it on; to make cleaning much easier.

Glad you got it working again!

Now… CASTLEVANIA!!

I wish but I don't have that game, or any of them. And with Tradera having phukked everything up I can no longer use that to buy more games

Never got around to getting them somehow

Or... Pennsylvania! Muh-ha-ha-ha!