Cartridges

Has anyone ever told you the true way of playing a game? Don't get a disc and play it in your new Xbox One. Get your favorite cartridge and put it in your NES and play. The classic way, right? Many people say discs are superior to cartridges. Well, in some cases, that is true. It can hold more data.

But cartridges are delicate little things that no one can resist. No matter how far discs go. They are home to one of my favorite games, "Conker's Bad Fur Day". That's not the only game that, without cartridges, wouldn't exist. "Super Mario Brothers", "Double Dragon", and "The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past".

Well, maybe not all games are good. The Bubsy games, I never really liked them. Just some stupid orange cat who has the most annoying voice. Pirated games are the worst example. "Somari" for the NES is basically a fusion of Sonic and Mario. It's pretty bad, but at least it is pirated.

Some games are really bad. Superman 64, in fact, almost all the Superman games are bad. ALL OF THEM! Superman for the Atari 2600, Superman for the NES, and Superman 64 is considered to be the worst game of all time. No, it's not the worst. I remember going to the local game shop, the little 7 year old I was, and looking in the Atari 2600 section. What I saw, was one of the worst nightmares I had ever had for almost a month.

Under the game "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark" was a cheap gray box. It read "GAME #1", I didn't know what it was, with such a name like that, but I decided to pick it up anyways and show it to my mom. She said "Game Number one? Wow, that's a terrible name for a game." She decided to get it for me anyways, I just wish she didn't.

This is when the bad things started happening, after we got home, local news started to report "Strange noises heard in Corona" and me and my mom were on it except 30 years older. We couldn't believe our eyes, how were we on this news report? But then, something that sounded like a gunshot rang through the TV, and the next thing we knew, our TV selves were dead. The news reporter yelled "Oh god!" I just laid there sitting down, I couldn't believe what happened.

I held off on playing any game, I was too afraid. Every now and then I'd see in the corner of my eye, my decaying, bloody body laying in the snow, next to my mom who- it's too disturbing to describe, i'm sorry. I swear even today I can see a man in the background of that... picture, holding a gun, and having a polite man's smile. Even when I was 7 I could still see that image clearly.

Weeks later, I played the game. I had finally gotten over the news report. The game was not what I expected. It was a prototype of Atari's first game, Pong. Except, everything was glitching out and it made weird and loud noises. It was a prototype, alright. Every time I hit the ball it made a very loud static noise. I tried not hitting the ball, but it kept going. It went faster and faster until all I could hear was ringing in my ear drums. Then it all stopped, and the cartridge ejected. I took it out, got my mom's lighter, and burned it on the ground. I then ran and cried to my mom.

Now, about the news repor- what was that? It sounded like a gunshot, I'll just have to go check...