NES – Douglas Ernst Blog

Mario — The creator of ‘Go right’ makes us look back and smile with nostalgia while urging us to charge forward and battle through life’s obstacles. It’s an amazing little piece of work. If you grew up playing video games, you’ll love it.

Anyone who grew up playing video games as a kid needs to watch the video ‘Go Right.’ It’s amazing. Even a lot of people who don’t like video games, don’t care for them, and wish they didn’t exist will get it.

Long story short, in most side-scrolling video games you spend a lot of your time charging forward, blasting and beating your enemies, jumping over and through obstacles and hurling yourself into the great unknown. You must time your decisions just right, but often times the environment you find yourself in is tricky and unpredictable. The game is “unfair.” Your character is unevenly matched. There are inequalities between you and your competitor. The cards are stacked against you, and you must build up your arsenal of weapons and knowledge by making prudent and wise decisions over the course of the game.

Sometimes, you get knocked down. Sometimes, you fail. Miserably. Sometimes you feel like your world is caving in on you, you can’t do anything right, and that you might as well give up. And, just like in ‘Go right’ we often try to go backwards. We try and head in the opposite direction, away from the uncertainty and the battles we know are waiting for us. It usually takes awhile, but the true hero realizes what he must do. There’s a moment where it all sinks in, and we find our inner mettle and dive back into the fray.

The battles we fight are fierce, but in the end you will either be victorious or die trying. Both outcomes are honorable. What isn’t honorable is giving up and pulling the plug when the bombs are going off around us and failure becomes a viable option.

The creator of ‘Go right’ found a way to tap into a sense of nostalgia with a message about how important it is to always drive forward. For that, I tip my hat to him.

Growing up in the 80’s, Maniac Mansion was one of my favorite games.

Unlike most other titles out at the time, it didn’t have a predetermined outcome. You hand picked your team from a number of different characters, each with their own unique skill set. Players had to be strategic about who they chose on their team, because the outcome of the game altered depending on who came along for the mission.

The storyline went as follows:

A meteor falls to the earth behind the mansion of “Dr. Fred.”
Weird things happen in town.
A group of friends decide to investigate when their friend goes missing.

What does all of this have to do with Barack Obama? Lately, he reminds me of Dr. Fred. Many Americans (particularly independent voters) don’t know what the heck is going on inside the White House, but they know that peculiar things are happening to the country. Like Dr. Fred, some people think the President is evil, some people think he’s a genius, some wonder if his behavior is connected to weird meteors that fall from the sky (okay, well, maybe not that one), and others think there’s nothing wrong at all. The rest have no clue what’s going on…but they’re determined to get to the bottom of it.

While you’ll never hear me call the President evil (read Natan Sharansky’s The Case for Democracy if you want to know why), I do think his policies are downright scary and destructive. Liberals treat the United States as their own special science experiment by throwing billions of taxpayer dollars into social engineering schemes thought up by the “equal outcome trumps equal opportunity” crowd.

no9 — Politicians who try to play God usually just do a great job of making life Hell for the rest of us.

Like the run-of-the-mill mad scientist that isn’t much interested in anyone’s opinion but his own, Barack Obama spent years holed up with like-minded liberal academics. The occasional input by hunchbacked, hobbling assistants generally only echos long held beliefs; they rarely offer dissent. And, while it would be nice to believe that Barack Obama was the kind of guy who could create No.9, I’m more inclined to believe his policies will create the kind of post apocalyptic world the characters of the movie 9 inhabit.

“We had such potential,such promise…but we squandered our gifts,” (Allan Oppenheimer as “The Scientist”).

The next time you get the urge to vote for someone who’s narcissistic enough to think they can plan a 12 trillion dollar economy, dust off your favorite old NES games when the polls open and hope you don’t solve them until after they close.

Tag: NES

Go right

Maniac Mansion: Barack Obama Edition