How NES Box Art Almost Ruined Our Childhood

Corbin — You are going to buy a Nintendo game today so it’s either your birthday or it’s close to Christmas. There was plenty of time in between these two great events to decide what game you wanted to buy. Unfortunately you had no resources; there was no internet to read reviews and you couldn’t trust Nintendo Power’s “reviews” either. All you can do is drag your parents to the mall and pray that they had something “bitchin” behind the counter.

Back then, my idea of bitchin’ consists of aliens with big teeth, hard-headed soldiers firing off big guns, and armored warriors that didn’t smile - the fun stuff.

As I was looking behind the counter at the wall of Nintendo games, I noticed three games that widened my eyes. First, there was Contra which showed two ripped guys, big guns, and aliens – hell yeah. Ninja Gaiden was a couple of boxes over, which had a really buff ninja posing in the middle of a burning city – awesome. Last, there was a game called Deadly Towers with a huge warrior on the front wearing wicked armor and wielding a big sword – it’s going to be a good year!

I didn’t understand what “contra” meant and the blonde soldier on the left didn’t look enthusiastic to be killing aliens with machine guns so I passed that one up. I knew what a ninja was but I had no idea what “gaiden” meant. I inspected Ninja Gaiden again and noticed he wasn’t excited; he shows you his weapons like how your 3 year old brother shows you his school drawing of Mario. Another friend was with me and he called it “gay-den”, then he pointed at me and asked an uncomfortable question by raising one eyebrow. Before he finished the words, “Are you…” the game was already back on the wall.

That brings us to Deadly Towers, which really spoke to me. It said, “Embark on dangerous adventures through deadly towers and kill everything with this here big sword.” I was sold after I took one more look at the hero on the cover and I felt how confident, relentless, and ready he looked. I pointed to the game, my mom rolled her eyes, paid the cashier, and we went home. Once home I popped in the game, started playing, and I then realized that adults were right – kids are stupid.

Deadly Towers is one of thee worst games ever made for the Nintendo. I can’t return it because the box is opened and on top of that, my mom hates me playing Nintendo so complaining about the $50 she just spent was sure to get the game frisbee’ed at my head. All I can do now is wait until Christmas and convince myself that Deadly Towers is a good game.

Tray — Wasting your yearly video game budget on a piece of hot garbage like Deadly Towers, and the horrible, stinking shame that ensued, sums up a large part of my childhood memories. Like Corbin mentioned, many times this was the biggest and best Christmas or birthday present we’d get as kids and having it suck was a complete kick in the balls.

Coming from a lower middle class family, I would spend months looking forward to the big trip to the local Toys R Us to pick out my present. After buttering up my folks and hiding my old man’s booze long enough for him to sober up and drive, the day would arrive with much fanfare. The long rows of video game covers at the toy store were a sight to behold. Hundreds of games. Hundreds of possibilities.

Back then you had no idea of what games were good or not unless you had actually played it first. Video games were still considered kids toys and didn’t get nearly as much coverage and mainstream attention as they do now. It was the equivalent of going down the cereal aisle looking for something colorful to grab your attention. So of course you had to rely mostly on the box art and screen-shots of the game on the back.

There would be so much excitement on the way home looking at your new game and imaging how it would play. There would be even more excitement as your drunken father would drive into oncoming traffic because he was getting ‘the shakes’ while cursing out the Asian drivers on the road. You would get home and throw in your new game hoping for the best. Unfortunately, for me at least, 90% of the time you would play for less than 30 seconds before realizing your worst fears were true. You’ve been duped again and this game totally sucks.

In the case of Deadly Towers, where do I start? The game opens up with you firing swords from your crotch at a moving fire. Go ahead and read that again if you need to. And that’s just the beginning. From there you’ll be able to fire crotch swords at squirrels, bouncing balls, slinkys, bats, puffs of dust, toasters, trees, slime puddles, campfires and rocks. Other interesting game mechanics include randomly being teleported to endless maze-like dungeons inhabited with more lame enemies. The game is about as fun as high school geometry and the graphics are an eyesore.

After being repeatedly duped by game companies and their lousy products I started to learn a few life lessons:

• Most companies spent more time and resources on their marketing than their games
• The “Nintendo Seal of Quality” my ass!
• Cover art rarely had anything to with the game it was featured on
• Alcohol may impair your ability to operate heavy machinery or cause serious birth defects
• Hidden in the deluge of crappy software were some great titles that made it all worth it

These lessons have served the Hammered Brothers well.

Other misleading box art with crappy games inside…

…and good NES games with great box art.