Mike Tyson's Punch Out / Contra

It's really what NES was created for. A Tuesday night, a buddy calls and says "What's up, wanna hang out? What's there to do? We should play some video games!"

Upon arrival, Jake sees and remembers the scope of my collection and flatters me. After checking out my PS3, receiver setup, projector, basically...man cave, we search through nearly 400 NES titles and settle on, you guessed it, Contra. How could we really pick anything else? Jake brings up the story of how I beat Contra my freshmen year of college upside down and through a mirror, so of course we have to play it now.

After 7+ years for Jake and 1+ year for me, Jake and I fall into our old rhythm of gunning down computer drones with spread guns and slicing our way inside and out of the vile Red Falcon with lasers and F-guns. As it turns out, we saved the universe, and we are heroes. I am proud to say we made no silly errors like jumping each other out of the screen or holding each other back. We did get shot a couple times and Jake fell into a few pits, but that's to be expected after such a lag. I finished with 30 guys and Jake finished with 13. We used "The Code".

We then continue on to Mike Tyson's Punch Out. As we contemplate the difference between Mike Tyson and Mr. Dream, Jake and Little Mac work their way through the Major and Minor divisions. Jake stumbled on Soda Popinski and I took over. After showing Jake a new trick on Soda (block his big uppercut and he freezes, then you can pop him for a star), I stumble upon Don Flamenco reincarnated. I lose. Then Jake loses again by decision. Holy crap! We're getting old. The only way to go through that game is simply to go undefeated, so we started over. I punch my way in record time through the ranks and gett to Tyson flawless. Thirty seconds later, I'm flat on my butt, Game Over.

Time for the other code (007-373-5963). Jake takes his turn; Tyson takes three punches and 18 seconds later Jake is done in record time. I come back and Jake says "Last try, gotta go." Tyson gets worked over in the first round, no uppercut connections. Second round starts, three belly shots sends him to the mat with three stars in my pocket. Tyson gets counter punched and uppercutted into the mat twice more for my quickest victory ever: 2:05 in the second round. Tyson has never seen such finger speed before!

It was a pleasure and an honor to play video games with Jake. Anytime somebody wants to play a little NES, just do it. It makes you feel good! All the old times are brought back and all the cares in the world go away. All I'm saying is that we could have used a family-sized bucket of KFC to top off the night. Thank you mothers and children for making this possible.