NEWS: Wil Wheaton's Geek in Review: The Most Advanced Computer System Ever Made

GEEK: Wil Wheaton's Geek in Review: The Most Advanced Computer System Ever Made

When I gave my keynote at Penny Arcade Expo, I wanted to give context to the whole reason we all gathered in Seattle. To do that, I tried to take the audience on a trip through gaming history, as seen through the eyes of someone who witnessed the evolution from Atari 2600 to Xbox360 first hand.

I understand that there will be an official PAX'07 DVD released sometime before our Sun goes supernova, or Duke Nukem Forever goes gold, but until then, here's some video of me talking about the first time I played a Nintendo Entertainment System.



Here's what I put into my notes, for those of you who are YouTube impaired, or want to find those places where I broke away from my prepared remarks to heed Fiona Apple's timeless advice to just "go with yourself."

After briefly browsing the action figures and board games, we turned a corner and saw it: the Nintendo Entertainment System, sitting at the end of an aisle, waiting for some lucky kid to pick up its controller and take it for a spin.

We looked at each other, marveling at our good luck, before bolting down the aisle and grabbing the controllers so that no one could get between us and unlimited video game bliss.

There were sixteen different games to choose from. It was incredible. My eyes raced across the colored titles spread out before me:

Golf? No. Golf is lame.

Clu Clu Land? That sounds like math. Next.

Kung-Fu? Bori -- wait! Kung-Fu? Like in the arcade?!

"Let's play Kung-Fu," I said.

"Is it cool?" he said.

"I'm pretty sure it is, Jer," I said. "I think I've played this at Pinball Plus."

(Pinball Plus was our local arcade, owned by a guy who would give us free tokens for good grades. He sold the place in the late eighties, and it was renamed – I am not making this up – The Enterprise. I felt right at home there, for all the reasons you’d think.)

I hit start and was so impressed and excited by what I saw, I think I peed a little.

It was unlike anything I'd ever seen on a console. It made our Atari 2600 feel as technologically advanced as a set of alphabet blocks that was missing three of the five vowels.

"Oh my god, Jeremy! This is just like the arcade!"

"Yeah!" He said, spurred on by my excitement as much as his own.

We alternated between Kung-Fu, Excitebike, and Pinball until our parents dragged us away, what felt like hours later.

Once we were in the car. My brother said, "Mom! Dad! That Intendo is so great!"

"It's Nintendo, Jeremy," I said, in my very best Serious and Mature voice, "and it's probably the most advanced computer system that will ever be made."

That was my favorite line in the entire keynote, because I can still hear myself saying it, and recall how passionately I believed that.

I'm pretty heavily in love with my Nintendo DS, and I have a massive crush on my Xbox360, but the Nintendo Entertainment System will always hold a special place in my heart that's like . . . well, you know how there's the person you lose your virginity to, but then there's the person who shows you how to actually, you know, do it right? I lost my virginity to the Atari 2600, but it was the NES that made me a man.

Wow. Uncomfortable metaphors FTW.

Wil Wheaton made this half-pony half-monkey monster to please you, but he gets the feeling that you don’t like it. What’s with all the screaming?

Perfect.

"Wow. Uncomfortable metaphors FTW."

Ya, Ive made a few similar. Great read.

Awesome allusions. I lost my NES in a nasty break up and Im still sad about it to this day.

aah, the memories

Awesome. I'm filled with shameless nostalgia.

(Edited for spelling. I is clever.)

I still have a TV that has the Pong screen burnt into the CRT.

Mmmmmmm..... Pong!

[Sigh]

Yeah, meet me over here...

Paul, get the star! GET THE STAR! INVINCIBILITY!!!!!!!!

*plays starpower music*

GO!!!

Having travelled that same road (up to the new consoles) I say that is the perfect way to describe gaming beginnings. When I recently reclaimed both my 2600 and my NES I mere shrugged when I found the 2600 dead. I did all my power to get the NES working (and even found the emulator for my Mac).

My brother and I had a sneaking suspicion that the NES we'd begged for pretty much all year was under the christmas tree in 1987. I was woken up by him at roughly 4am, ran out to the living room and found our shiny new NES hooked up to the TV. This moment is actually one of the first moments of my life that I remember, that was how excited I was.

Sadly, we had to give away the NES when we moved from Canada to Australia in 1990. It wasn't long after that we got the Sega Master System II... right up until today, with my XBOX360. So thankyou NES and long live the console.

I actually feel the same way.

My family won ours in a contest while we were visiting some friends at a beach, or something. I really don't know, because I had to spend the whole time playing indoors thanks to my skins hatred of sunlight.

(I mean, I can sit in a car with tinted windows, and in 15 minutes I'll have a sunburn. No joke.)

Anywho, yeah. The NES helped me survive childhood...seeing as how my childhood consisted of my parents moving to the only neighborhood in the world where I was the only male child within a 6 block radius. So, yeah. It was either play "Cheerleader"...or play NES and read. Hmmm.....which did I choose....



Goooooo NES!

My boyfriend figured out how to reattach my original NES to my current TV. We were amazed that still works. It sits there under the Playstation2 and right by the GameCube. Now any day of the week you might just find me playing Tetris again...


Oh who am I kidding? OF COURSE you'll find me playing Tetris. Maybe Super Mario 2. I still won't forgive that kid in elementary school who borrowed Mario 3 and never gave it back.

"believed" past tense? hell i still believe that. NES owns to this day.

theres emulators for that you know. ive got supermario 1-3 on my mac and im playing them through for the first time. im on SM2 7.2!

my mate Liam was down from Wakefield, in the forzen north, and we set up my ps2 in my studio (the only inside place i can smoke at my parents house, despite it actually being outside) and after a night of dabbling a little with Tekken TAg, Soul Calibur 2 and 3, Tiesplitters 2, and a couple of others, we broke out the NES, and after tuning it in, and alspping on one of the only 3 cartiridges i can still find, we sat down and playerd duck hunt until 3am, it was amazing.

NES was the first real games console i owned, i had tape streaming stuff pre-dating it, but i remeber when at age 5 my parents refused to play mario as i was that much better than they were that they had to get a walkthrough guide.

thus began my obsesssion with gaming, and also my parents lack of interest. that was 17 years ago

I am in love with my DS and not just because its pink Its funny because my Mom called here the other day asking me if I took the Nintendo from her basement...of course I didnt...(not saying I didnt consider it) but it turns out she had put it in one of those Mom 'safe spots' with all the games and system together. My nephews enjoy playing it when they go over there of course they are totally smitten with the Wii

I spent all of january of my eighth grade year deconstructing all the secrets of The Legend Of Zelda with my cronies. we all got the NES for xmas. This was long before you could go out and buy the book to tell you all the secrets. NES was THE system that had games you could use time and persistance to brute force your way through figuring out.

Nintendo.... <Homer Simpson Drool>

I'm old enough to remember the original PONG in all its black and white glory! it was incredible and we found it as captivating as any Shooter or MMORPG out today...

I appreciate living through the early days of PCs (Altair!) and home gaming systems. It has given me the perspective to really see how far we've come. Just look at current high end games like BIOSHOCK and on November 16th, CRYSIS. Heres hoping SPORE is an early 2008 release instead of early 2009...

Alas, we were too poor for the late 90's console revolution. We had a couple of the earlier consoles (including the poor Intellivision), but my focus was more on the birth of the PC. With the work my dad did, a PC was far for "justifiable" than a dedicated gaming console. Dual use led to my PC gamer bias. Over 25 years now.

However, I did borrow a friends NES from time to time and experienced the agony of Nintendo Thumb. Oh, the blisters!

I listened to Will's speech from PAX shortly after it was given and I was blown away by the passion he has for his gaming lifestyle (and it's origins) as well as the way he presents himself. Excellent speech as well as a call to arms for gamers everywhere.

P.S. Fuck Jack Thompson very roughly.

Will, you bring back some wonderful memories. Thanks

WilWheaton said:

I watched my brother play many a game before I took my shot at it. He played Goonies 2 for a week before he beat it, me watching all the way. I started a new game and beat it within 5 hours.
I think that means my brother was the one to make me a man.

Talk about uncomfortable metaphors

Wow... first double post..

Ahhh....but how many of you remember Nintendo cereal?

Agreed.

Not only do I remember, but I still own, and play zelda on it. (My dad can open the game and replace the battary... so it's good as new!)