Every few years I find myself coming back to MAME. For the uninitiated (or just forgetful), MAME is the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, a remarkable piece of software that emulates considerably more arcade games than you even knew existed.

Unfortunately, my experience always goes like this:

• Download and build MAME (I’m often on Linux and building from source works best for me); this step usually works pretty smoothly, if a bit slowly as the MAME code base consists of many thousands of files
• Find some ROM images I downloaded years ago
• Re-familiarize myself with the documentation; the trade-off you make with such a marvelously super-flexible program is that the setup can be painful
• Finally figure out how to launch the emulator with a particular ROM
• Find that the ROM package is corrupted and MAME can’t run it (no quality control with underground contraband, I tell ya)
• If it does work, then read some more documentation until I can make a gamepad work and achieve the optimal graphics and audio settings

Then I can finally enjoy a classic arcade game or 2… until I remember the final insult:

Pure arcade games are not terribly engaging when played by yourself in free-play mode. When playing any arcade game in free-play mode, it becomes painfully obvious in short order that — for the vast majority of such games — the only challenge is to keep your character alive and the only motivation for doing so is to not have to feed more currency into the machine in order to keep playing. When you’re effectively on free-play, getting through an arcade game just feels like a rote chore. Conventional emulators don’t suffer from this same issue since, generally, one emulator only emulates one system while MAME emulates thousands. Further, other emulators tend to emulate systems that are built around gameplay principles other than pure token-eating.

Still, I have come back every so often and get that MAME fix.

A year ago, I shipped off to various video game museums my collection of Nintendo Power magazines, consisting of most of the first 46 issues. But before I did, one last silly project I wanted to undertake was to list all of the prizes from various Players Polls.

NP used the Players Poll to determine the most popular games amongst players, and used the prizes as a means of incentivizing response. Some of the prizes struck me as a little strange, even when I was reading the magazine as a child. One that stuck out in my mind was the tie-in with the Total Recall NES title, dreadful game that it was — The grand prize was an authentic martian police force uniform from the movie. 2nd prizes included costume badges from the movie. 3rd prize was the game. It’s hard to tell which prize would have been worse. Similarly, the 1990 Jan/Feb issue had a contest themed around movies. One of the prizes involved a random game from a pool of 15 notoriously awful, movie-themed NES games.

On the other hand, some of the more notable grand prizes included a trip for 4 to Disneyland (1988 Nov/Dec); trip for 4 to Super Bowl XXV (volume 18); and a trip to New Orleans for NCAA Final Four (volume 43).

Some of the weirder ones included becoming a character in a Valiant comic book (volume 20); Hudson Hawk scavenger hunt organized in your home town (volume 24); Bill & Ted’s telehone booth, installed with phone bill paid for 1 whole year (volume 27); Robocop’s Ford Taurus (volume 35); and hanging with Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince (volume 40). Further, there were at least 2 contests in which the grand prize involved doing work for Nintendo or its affiliates (1989 July/August offered the opportunity to do game testing for Nintendo; volume 32 was a trip to visit Rare and brainstorm ideas for a game). Another odd thing was that, while this magazine was aimed at kids (probably), a number of the contests revolved around R-rated movies (Robocop 2, Total Recall, and Hudson Hawk).

I thought I scanned a bunch of the more interesting examples before shipping off the magazines, but I can’t find them now. I found the scans and have updated the post.

1988 July/Aug – Super Mario Bros II cover

• 1st prize (1): 10 games of your choice
• 2nd prize (10): Super Mario Bros II
• 3rd prize (50): Nintendo Power jersey
• Notes: The contest page boasts OVER 60 BIG WINNERS; indeed, mathematically, there will be 61 winners. Also, according to the poll, it looks like the licensed library was roughly 87 games large at the time.

1988 Sep/Oct – Castlevania II cover

Theme: R.C. Pro-Am

• 1st prize (1): 10 games of your choice (presumably of the entire licensed library)
• 2nd prize (5): 14-inch scale model quick drive RC model car
• 3rd prize (10): R.C. Pro-Am game
• 4th prize (50): Nintendo Power jersey
• Notes: Again, “OVER 65 BIG WINNERS” when there will be exactly 66 winners.

1988 Nov/Dec – Track and Field II cover

• 1st prize (1): trip for 4 to Disneyland (4 days/3 nights)
• 2nd prize (600+): various NES games and accessories
• Notes: Trip to Disneyland; now we’re talkin’. I’m not sure if I mistyped that 600+ figure for 2nd prize winners. Seems off. 60 2nd place winners would be more in keeping with the contests up to this point.

1989 Jan/Feb – Zelda II cover

• 1st prize (1): A set of NES accessories
• 2nd prize (10): Zelda II game
• 3rd prize (50): NP jersey
• Note: This one claims over 150 winners when the prizes only seem to add up to 61.

Click for larger image

It’s amazing that game consoles track your achievements automatically in this day and age. Why, back in my day, I had to document every one of my achievements by hand. And you’d better believe I liked it that way!

I was really proud when I won my first NES game (though I probably shouldn’t have been — it was Konami’s Life Force while using the notorious Konami code). No matter, I still remember it as the first game I ever won. When I had gone on to win my first 10 games, I had no trouble recalling their titles and the order in which I completed them. After about 10, it got harder to keep the list straight in my head, so I started to record the titles on these little yellow pieces of paper and hang them on the wall near my NES.

I recently came across the list neatly rolled up in a box. It’s time to photograph it, post it, and then let the physical item go.

Here are a few achievements that stand out now, especially since I have spent the last decade or so reading internet reviews about how ridiculously difficult certain games were (a.k.a. games that were Nintendo Hard):

• The Adventures of Bayou Billy
• Battletoads
• Ninja Gaiden
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

I have read no shortage of retro-reviews indicating that anyone who claims to have won these games is a filthy liar. Well, I did win each one fair and square, back in the day. Never used a Game Genie, although I did often have Nintendo Power advising me. I’m not saying the games weren’t difficult. In fact, Battletoads had me downright stressed one summer as I was determined to win it and rented it 3 times in a row to achieve that goal. Afterwards, I wrote a letter to Nintendo Power with some tips and strategies I discovered along the way and they actually wrote a letter back, congratulating me for finishing Battletoads!

Another achievement I must mention is that I once made it to level 63 in Duck Hunt. Trust me, that’s the kind of accomplishment that comes from a hot summer afternoon of total boredom and nothing else to play. I wouldn’t recommend trying to beat that record.

On the flip side, I thought Mike Tyson was remarkably difficult to beat in Punch-Out!! Here’s a situation where most people I knew claimed they beat him on their very first try. Not me; I worked for weeks to beat him and I was briefed on all his tells and strategies well in advance.

Anyway, here are my achievements: 100+ games completed, mostly during a period of 3 years. Note that I counted the second quest of The Legend of Zelda as a separate game (#4 in this list). That’s controversial. It was certainly different enough to be a separate title.