The Game Genie was immensely popular, so I never understood why this device wasn’t continued for other consoles, or something similar to it.

Something really interesting about the totally radical Game Genie, dudes.  Nintendo hated it.  The Game Genie’s manufacturer Galoob (part of Hasbro as of 1998) first went to Nintendo to make it a licensed product, and Nintendo rejected it.  Galoob released it anyway, resulting in a lawsuit from Nintendo that the Game Genie infringed on their copyrights.  The courts favored Galoob and they continued to sell about 5 million Game Genies for NES, SNES, Game Boy, Sega Genesis, and Sega Game Gear.

This classic movie series also became an NES game series, adding to the list of “Poorly Ported Movies Into Games”.  (I’m sure this list exists somewhere.)

And strangely enough, this commercial reminds me of that Universal Studios “Back to the Future” ride.  And instead of assaulting our innocent game player with monsters or characters, he vouches for the driver’s seat of the DeLorean complete with a Nintendo console on the Dashboard while he does exciting things that flash by so quickly you can’t really tell what this game is supposed to be about.

But based on my childhood memories of playing Back to the Future for the NES, you really aren’t missing much.   You are Marty McFly, time traveler, doing irrelevant and boring game activities like collecting clocks laying about the level and blocking away little hearts thrown out from Lorraine, presumably her “kisses”.

What does this warrior want?  Has he come for an ancient relic?  To maim and kill?  Has he stumbled into an ancient dimension?  We’re not exactly sure, but he hands our friend a new video game to play. Presumably for free.  Kids everywhere were no longer scared of the monster in their closet.  Hell, it hands out free video games.

It looks sort of like a Twister game pad that like all plastic sheets will scoot across the floor when you try to step on it.  (Remember we’re about 20 years away from Wii Fit technology).  It plugs in and you can play exciting games that usually involve running in place faster than your friends or your computer opponent.  You’re playing with Body Power!

While moderately successful and probably considered a real space-waster by Parents everywhere, Power Pad was sold in a re-release of the Nintendo console called the “Power Set”.

If the Power Glove taught me anything, it was possibly the first toy that all my friends owned that I thought was a useless piece of crap.   I came to realize that my desire for the Power Glove was nothing but heavy marketing and peer-envy, like most things are when you’re a kid.  Did anyone actually enjoy using the Power Glove?

Probably a better “advertisement” for the Power Glove aimed directly at the youth of the late 80′s was in Nintendo’s 90-minute commerical The Wizard.  I love the Power Glove.  It’s so bad.

I believe this is footage of protests from bored Super Mario 2 players.

Released in 1988, Super Mario 2 is actually a clone of an earlier Japanese title called Doki Doki Panic.  It is likely that Nintendo’s market testing in the United States proved the Japanese version of Super Mario 2 was too much like the original, so they re-sprited another title with Mario characters and put the Mario 2 title on it.

To the theme of “Witch Doctor” this 1990 commerical touts Dr. Mario for both NES and Gameboy.