Top 5 crappy NES games I found myself playing the most as a kid

Here are my top 5 games I couldn’t get enough of as a kid, my cousins and friends and I spent a lot of time on the NES, and the games on this list are the 5 that though aren’t that great, are still some of my fondest gaming memories. Now don’t get me wrong, I played the crap out of the classics- Metroid, Mike Tysons Punch Out, Contra, and the like, but bad games are like fat chicks, they need some luvin too!

#5 Rescue the Embassy Mission

This game was super sweet, it had 5 different levels and each one was really cool and really innovative. The first one that comes to mind was the sniper level, going from window to window picking off bad guys that would then plummet to their deaths, Too Cool! Then there was the repelling level, the object being to insert yourself into the bad guys headquarters, then there was the level in which you had to use awesome rolling techniques to avoid spotlights. I remember I never knew what the hell the story was but as a kid I would make up my own spy storylines and play this game endlessly! Great stuff!

#4 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

“Soon Khali Ma will rule the world!” We didn’t know what the hell it meant, but I still to this day use the phrase, it was repeated every time you lost all of Indiana’s lives. OK so the game was crap, a kinda of sidescrolling, yet not, game full of dudes in turbans. The rail carts would constantly run into each other spilling Indy to his death and one misstep, which happened more often than not would send Indy to a lava drenched hell of which only his iconic hat would survive. However the whip swinging and the licence alone kept us coming back for more torture, game after game! The point I suppose was to rescue the kids and collect objects like maps and swords but I don’t believe I ever got too far, even though countless hours were spent playing the game!

#3 WWF Wrestlemania

This game had it all for a young wrestling fanatic, Hogan, Macho Man, even Honky Tonk Man, it had theme music, and you could collect your logo from the top of the screen and “Hulk out”. Yeah it looked ugly and the most powerful move was the headbutt and the ever so impossible to pull off body slam, but who could resist! This game also had an awesome option to set up a huge 8 man tourney, My friends and I would gather around and pick our wrestler (whoever got Million Dollar Man was screwed) then battle each other in the grand Wrestlemania 4 fashion! Watch out for Bam Bams cartwheels, and of course you could choose to be the legendary Andre the Giant! I was a huge WWF fan and that’s one of the main reasons this game found itself so often in my console, even above the far superior Pro Wrestling, proving that licensing goes a long ways!

#2 Friday the 13th

Another tough ass game that had a great license, Jason hunting was just to fun! The game would make us jump, curse, and replay day in and day out. I have so many fond memories of guiding the multiple playable character around crystal lake, lighting fireplaces in cabins and battling Jason’s mom’s disembodied head with machetes and torches to earn her sweater. Rowing across the lake to save poor helpless campers and doing everything I could to make it into day two. The game took many liberties such as where the hell did the Zombies come from? That aside the game was constantly plugged in to my NES due to my love of horror films, I just wished they had made a game based on the Shining!

#1 Jaws

This game was intense! You had to navigate your little boat back and forth between two docks, the first time you reached the other dock you received the Jaws tracker, then each consecutive time you would gain power in your harpoon gun for the under water fights against jelly fish, small sharks and of course Jaws! But before you dive down do as much damage as you can by hucking cannon balls over the side of the ship. You could get crabs to help speed your swimming ability, the only kind of crabs you really want I suppose. Then when jaws was finally drained of all his life bar you went into the final sequence, this epic showdown involved watching his fin approach and when he got just close enough you had to strobe light the water which would pop him out at which point you had to spear him with the front of the ship! I still recall the first time I was succesful, awesome pixellated blood shot forth and sent the demon fish spiraling to the depths and I flew off into the sunset in my plane, wait that never happened in the film, oh well! My cousins and I played this game endlessly on my many vacations to Florida!