As I watched over a friend’s shoulder at the boxes of even numbers seamlessly combining into greater powers, I knew that with every doubling of his score, my productivity was halving. That’s the problem with college students: As soon as we find a new distraction we have to make sure everyone within reach falls victim to it as well.
Truth be told, I never completed 2048. I grew far too frustrated with the game and my work ethic slowly returned to me. I survived Winter Quarter finals and started Spring Quarter with fresh motivation. It was only a matter of time until a new piece of web-based entertainment came along to ruin my perfectly crafted to-do list.
Last week I had my first run-in with NESbox, a browser-based emulator that runs on Adobe Flash. I created an account and, thanks to my dedication to appeasing the never-ending onslaught of Adobe Updates, I had everything I needed to get started.
Without wasting time, I jumped straight into Super Mario Kart, a classic Super Nintendo game many members of our generation have enjoyed at some point. Gameplay was awful at first. Controls made no sense, everything was touchier than console play and I quickly found myself a full lap behind the other characters. After the first race, I took a minute to familiarize myself with the orientation of the buttons. My second race I won definitively. With my first taste of victory, the next forty-five minutes vanished into thin air.
The next evening, I took my study break to log back into NESbox and try my hand at Super Mario World, another of the most popular titles the site offers. The buttons were consistent with the configuration I learned the previous night for Mario Kart, which helped me hit the ground running. Before I knew it, I was venting my water level-induced anger with all the ferocity of the middle school version of myself who first played the 1992 title at a friend’s house during a sleepover.
For the next few days I explored other titles the site has to offer. I found myself to be just as bad at Mortal Kombat on my computer as I was the last time I played it. Earthworm Jim, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Donkey Kong also made appearances in my browser window at various times.
All things considered, I’d give the gameplay experience a solid 7/10. The buttons are reversed from the original controllers (arrows are on the right), so you’ll have to relearn all the hand-eye coordination you dedicated years to developing. As I previously mentioned, the browser version also reacts more quickly than the console version, which can be helpful after practice but will cause some untimely deaths at first.
As for selection, NESbox deserves no lower than a 9/10. Boasting 4,697 titles, it supports games from NES, Super Nintendo, and Sega Mega Drive. Players would have a hard time finding a game from those platforms the website doesn’t offer, or at least have in a different form. Even some Disney titles were represented, though I didn’t take the time to experience them.
For appearance, I can’t feel justified giving anything higher than a 5/10. The graphics are true to the original games, but that can be frustrating on a computer with retina display. I don’t expect crystal-clear pictures, but when I try to make some of the games full-screen they become distorted and hard to work with. Instead, I’m stuck playing on the YouTube-sized screen surrounded by ads for Origin and Now That’s What I Call Music.
At this point, I’ve already gotten several other people hooked on the ferocious nostalgia NESbox has released into my life. I think I’ll wait a few more days before suggesting we try the multiplayer options. They’re already mad enough at me.