Welcome to a walk down memory lane.

First off I would like to wish everyone a late Happy Halloween! I was meaning for this post to be up last night but movies, carving pumpkins, sweets, Beavis and Butthead and The Walking Dead devoured my time. Second I would like to introduce a second series that I will be posting. I don't have a name for it yet, it's something I decided to do just a day or two ago. But I hope you all enjoy it. It'll be every other week, meaning The Evolution of Gaming will be on weeks this series isn't posted. So look for Part 2 of the TF2 evolution next week.

With that all out of the way, welcome to my new series. I will be discussing games I grew up playing and have fond memories of. I was lucky enough to experience many of the "retro" gaming systems growing up, when they were released. My earliest memory of video games is watching my dad play Desert Falcon on the Atari. After that video games were always apart of my youth. Since this is more of a look back at old games, I wont really be reviewing them. Just pointing out things that stuck out to me growing up and what memories I have. I might point out some flaws if they were something that made an impact on me.


Ah Monster Party...though late, still perfect for the season. I remember when my dad brought this game home. The cartridge label was a deep purple, across the top had the name of the game in very typical 80's "spooky text" in green. Under the title it had a group of monsters which resembled many popular monsters. Bargain basement versions of a critter from Critters, an alien from the Alien series and even a red Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors were apart of the "party". I instantly fell in love with the game as these were some of my favorite movies at the tender age of 4.
The above image is the game in a nutshell, silly names, skulls and influences from horror movies. See the movie curtains? The game is about a young boy named Mark who encounters a monster on his way home from a ball game. The monster, who introduces himself as Bert, asks Mark if he can come and save his home, from evil out of control monsters, using his "weapon" the baseball bat. Bert takes Mark to his home planet and they merge, becoming one being on the way to their destination. Starting the game up, you find yourself in a very colorful sidescroller. There are even smiley faces on the blocks and trees that remind me of Super Mario Brothers, only weirder.

Even though the game is very colorful and there's smiles everywhere you look, the game just seems....off. The first enemies you encounter are boys in school jackets covered in electricity that launch lighting at you, and legs that stick out of the ground and kick up and down. The first bosses you fight are a purple plant that says "Hello, baby!" as per Audrey II that launches bubbles and a dead giant spider with a fly zooming around it's corpse. But shit really goes bizarre when you reach a certain point in the level.
From this point on the game is creepy and pretty gory. The enemies become even more bizarre. You see red dogs with yellow polka dots and human faces, that remind me of Uncle Fester. Also fish with human legs walking around and giant immobile cat that launches kittens at you. The game despite being extremely odd has some neat mechanics for the time. When you pick up certain power ups you transform in to Bert for a limited amount of time. In this form you can fly and launch projectiles. As Mark you can use your bat to hit and launch projectiles back at enemies and bosses, which is much stronger than the basic melee attack. Something I loved as a kid and saved me many times, is laying down and crawling like a worm.

The environments are also varied, much like many NES games of the time. You start in the happy forest, my your way to creepy sewers, dark caves, ancient pyramids, back to a normal looking forest next to a river, a haunted house a tower filled with iconic "monsters" including a man wearing a sports mask, ghosts, and even a giant bed bug and, oddly, the Elephant Man. Apparently there are a couple other levels I have never seen. I personally have never beat the game and thankfully never beat it as a child. Take a look at it for yourself and you'll know why I'm glad I didn't beat it.



I attribute this game to my love of Hideshi Hino. Gruesome gore hidden in a simple children story. If you want to check out one of the most bizarre NES games ever made with some interesting mechanics I would definitely check this game out. I can't guarantee you'll like the game. I love it because of all of it's references, that even as a child I understood, and the nostalgia.