Best Games for a Retro Gaming Tournament / "Decathlon"!
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I'm starting to think we are just trying to put together a Retro Tetris Gaming Tournament. Sadly, I'm not unhappy about that idea.... Play through Tetris games chronologically and aggregate the scores to get a champion.
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There's been so much talk of 'Tetris' here that I have to make mention of two amazing documentaries about the game that are a must see for all enthusiasts.
The first covers the fascinating story of how the game first came to be and how Russia "borrowed" and leveraged it as their first big experiment with capitalism. It also covers the bidding war and circumstances that brought the game to everyone's favorite handheld.
The second follows the world's best 'Tetris' players as the they come together to compete for the top title. Of particular interest is Thor Aackerlund, who actually competed and won the 1990 Nintendo World Championship and had since fallen off the map due to a series of unfortunate happenings. As the doc moves along, competitors express doubt that anyone could progress past a certain point. However, Thor mentions a technique that he used when he was a kid where he would rapidly vibrate his thumb to get the pieces to move in the desired direction quickly enough to make it possible. Is he telling the truth? Can he reclaim this ability? Will Gerald ever profess his undying love to Susan before his mysterious illness takes his life? Well, spoilers prevent me from saying, but it's well worth the watch.
...OK, Gerald dies, but it turns out he was Susan all along, so no big loss there.
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@mediamogul
I've seen Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters before. It was a pretty interesting documentary and it mentioning Thor was a cool surprise. I actually went to the "1990 Nintendo World Championship" when it came through my state. I tried out for the auditions behind the stage but never got a score high enough to make it in the competition on the stage. I remember the movie The Wizard being a lot like the "1990 Nintendo World Championship". The Wizard was the first time we all got to see Super Mario Bros. 3!I also remember a local video rental store had a Super Mario Bros. 3 contest to see who could get the highest score in 5 minutes of game play. I actually got 2nd place and I started talking to the guy that got first place and we ended up becoming best friends. He also taught me how to use MS-DOS.
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Both of those are good Tetris Documentaries. There are a couple other good gaming documentaries on Netflix as well:
Atari: Game Over
Video Games:The MovieI pretty much only watch documentaries anymore on Netflix though....
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@mrbwa1
I enjoyed "Video Games: The Movie" with Sean Astin narrating. I like that one of the video game devs asks the question "Is Facebook a video game?". -
@backstander I like Sean. It was actually recommended after I watched a couple good music documentaries ("The Wrecking Crew" and "Muscle Shoals") along with "Dear Mr. Watterson (the awesome documentary in Bill Watterson who drew Calvin & Hobbes then just kinda disappeared.
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@backstander said in Best Games for a Retro Gaming Tournament / "Decathlon"!:
I actually went to the "1990 Nintendo World Championship" when it came through my state.
That is really cool. Of course this now makes you this closest thing this forum has to having the real life Fred Savage as a member. I hope your ready for that level of responsibility.
Atari: Game Over
Video Games:The MovieBoth fantastic documentaries.
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My 2 cents: "Man vs. Snake"
It's about Tim McVey and the Nibbler arcade game. I liked it.
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@meleu
continuing documentaries list...
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)Non-documentaries:
The Last Starfighter (1984) - because he became the last starfighter by playing an arcade game back home at his trailer park were he lived!
WarGames (1983) - because Ferris Bueller also starts World War III trying to play the earliest online deathmatch PC games; Thermonuclear War and Tic Tac Toe.
Tron - because...well it's Tron and you get to see what goes on behind the scenes of an actual game in progress...simular to Wreck-It Ralph.Because the topic is the best video game movies, right? Or was it the best Tetris games. I don't remember.
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If you are even in Las Vegas, there is a great place off the strip called the Pinball Hall of fame. It's gaming machines from the 50s, pinball from the 60s on and some 89s and 90s arcade game. Oh and one modern change making machine. As long as the games are working p, you can pop in a quarter (or 2 or 3) and have a go.
Hands down the best $$ I have ever spent in Vegas. It was really great for my kids to see true retro in action (and realize how easy modern games are).
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@mrbwa1
Oh and that reminds me, I haven't seen it yet but there's a documentary about the last arcade in New York's Chinatown called The Lost Arcade (2015).Hands down the best $$ I have ever spent in Vegas. It was really great for my kids to see true retro in action (and realize how easy modern games are).
I know, kids have it so easy now. I've heard kids that have beaten all the Dark Souls games complaining how hard some of those retro games were.
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@backstander My kid can't get the B-class license on the original PlayStation Gran Turismo.
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