Tennis

Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Sports – Tennis

I believe that, since my childhood, there has been not only a general tendency to make games easier (which is super-good) but also a dumbing down of expectations. Players were once required to control every aspect of the game’s interaction, whereas now there exist a good many games that take parts that would have once fell out of the player’s purview out of their hands. Take, for example, the Nintendo version of Tennis vs. the analogous Wii Sports subgame.

Tennis Title Screen
I could have just reviewed Tennis, but that would almost certainly be less interesting.

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Pinball

Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Pinball

Games that pretended to be something else used to be a really cool thing. “Check it out!” the game would say, “I’m a slot machine!” “I’m a pachinko machine!” “I’m a video poker game!” “I’m a monopoly simulator!”

“I’m a pinball machine,” seemed to be one of the more popular choices.

This is what all pinball machines look like when you fire them up.
This is what all pinball machines look like when you fire them up.

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