Gameological assistant editor Matt Gerardi joins me once again to talk about our weekend gaming plans—and please share yours in the comments, as always. Matt has been playing some obscure NES games lately, and he’s found some delightfully weird stuff. NES discussion often revolves around nostalgia, which is perfectly fun, but Nintendo’s first blockbuster system has some lesser-known oddities that are fascinating in their own right. Matt chatted his latest find and his plans to play a long-lost, unreleased treasure that only resurfaced in 2011.
John Teti: What are you playing this weekend?
Matt Gerardi: I’ll probably finally get some buddies together to play some Sportsfriends, which I’ve really been hankering for. Other than that, I’ll probably boot up a retro game or two and continue my new mandate to play more old games.
JT: How “retro” are we talking?
MG: NES, mostly. I’ve become interested in the games that came out toward the end of that system’s life, around 1990 and onward. There’s some great stuff there that flew under the radar because the Super NES was either out already or on the way.
JT: What’s your favorite late-era NES gem so far?
MG: I haven’t played all that many yet—I’m still putting together a list of things to check out—but I really love this game called Monster Party. Have you heard of it?
JT: I have not.
MG: It’s pretty wild. It’s about a boy who’s on his way home from a Little League game when a gargoyle-looking alien thing named Bert shows up. Bert tells him that he needs the help of the boy and his weapon, a baseball bat, to kill off the evil monsters that have invaded his home. So as this little boy, you walk around a horrific landscape bashing bizarre monsters with a baseball bat. Sometimes you’ll find a pill that lets you control Bert, who can fly and shoot lasers.