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We Feel Old After Watching Maisie Williams and Other Teens React to a Classic NES

“It’s sad that I know what this is, but I’ve never seen one in real life.”

Get ready to feel old, friends. The fine folks behind Teens React to Saved By The Bell have a new video to remind you that you are old, and it involves teenagers and the gaming consoles we all grew up playing. On this week’s episode from The Fine Brothers, a collection of youths, including Game of Thrones’ Maisie Williams, are handed a Nintendo Entertainment System that harkens back to rec rooms in the late 80s and early 90s. It’s boxy, and it’s grey on grey.

Growing up playing Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt on similar consoles, we have nothing but fond memories of blowing forcefully into game cartridges and grasping controllers the size of smartphones in our child-sized hands. These kids simply seem confused by the whole process, and worse – they don’t know about classics like The Legend of Zelda. What has happened to gaming education in the new century? How are older siblings not teaching their brothers and sisters all the finer points of cartridge maintenance?

Sure, there are a few older teens who remember playing games on this console, and a couple of sassy teenagers who look at the person behind the camera with a “duh” radiating out of their eyes, but more than anything else, they are flabbergasted by the “ancient” technology. We, however, had nostalgic flashbacks as soon as the soundtrack to Super Mario Brothers started. Regardless of the teens’ apathy for the system itself, it’s good to see them get excited about the games in the same ways we did. Maybe it’s time to unearth that original Game Boy we’re sure we packed away somewhere.

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Comments

  1. CLASSIC GAMER says:

    I have one in my drawer with tmnt and super mario as well as days of thunder lol

  2. Getalife says:

    “I don’t see how people could sit here all day and play this” – Because we didn’t sit there all day and play it. We had lives outside of the sitting in front of a video screen.

  3. HeyitsMe says:

    I guess it was just a bridge to far to have them sit in front of a Commodore 64 and wait 1.5 minutes for Lode Runner to … well, load.

  4. Drew says:

    HeyitsMe

  5. Jen says:

    What was fun was watching my son and his friends play Tetris on an old NES. That one of them had found.  They would all take turns playing each other, they would last a few minutes and try to beat their best score, which where ranging around or below 7,000. I just had to laugh.  They asked if I would like to play, I told them it had been over 18 years seen the last time I had play Tetris on the NES.  One of them asked if l could do better than any of them. I replied, ok game on.  They handed over the remote,  over 34,000 points later and unfortunately they figured out a few tricks I finally died.  They spent the rest of the night trying to beat my high score. My son said they finally beat the score a day later. It was so much fun playing and watching the look on their faces. That had made my evening.

  6. Mikko Kaarto says:

    Dont go saying that blowing on the cartitdge did not do anything: it removed dust particles that prevented connectivity to the copper based reader. because there was less dust on between cards copper interface and card reader, data could then be read with less errors, which usually caused game not to run and loop on start.

  7. Randy says:

    Even though I felt old as hell the entire time, I still couldn’t help smiling as they all blew in the cartridges 

  8. Jeanna says:

    What about an Atari hardly anyone had those. 

  9. Dan says:

    I’ll admit my experience with the NES was limited, I Grew up with the Atari 2600 and then upgraded to the Super NES- leapfrogging a bit, but seriuosly!?! how do these hipsters not know how nintendo works!?!?!

    • Jeanna says:

      Oh I had an Atari too. Had it till I was 23. My sister threw it out. I was so mad because it still played games but the on/off switch had broke on me and I was going to have it fixed when I had the money. She said she was tired of seeing it in her storage room. 🙁

    • Damen says:

      Because hipsters are retarded

  10. These kids are not the majority. They’re only 5 years younger than me for the most part and most people I know have played or owned the NES. They’re just dumbasses

  11. WL says:

    To be fair, the NES didn’t come out in Westeros til the fifth book

  12. Gerrit says:

    I am now pro-choice…

  13. Zoie says:

    lol i remember when the nes first came out geez i Am old XD they should have brought out the nintendo light gun and duck hunt ^^

  14. boB says:

    Now put an Intellivision in front of them!  Muhahahaha

  15. Arlene Suero says:

    I dont feel old watching this, I feel superior.

  16. There were things I did to get my games to work, without a doubt these things worked. One was to push down the game over and over again a few times. Another was to put the game through game genie and set a book on top of the console- the book also pressed down on the game sticking out of the console. When the console was older this was the only way to get the games to play.

    • My dad polished them with die electric gel, so that was the norm. or I’d stuff another cart on top of the one I was playing, give the cart inserted a wiggle.

  17. Hans Lundell says:

    Cool teens, i expected alot buuh and craptalk but they were humble and got the thing correct. i liked expressions like “we are so spoiled these days”, this is like a “vinyl gameconsole” 🙂 100%. And most of them said something about this is where it all started, and you dont know how close it was it all ended some years after … Fun video! Now go listen some true Gamemusic from 8-bitters to Mega -CD and satisfy your ears

  18. Crocket says:

    The girl that didn’t know the controller but had a phone case based off of it.. Like really?

  19. Chris says:

    I stopped reading @ the didn’t know “The Legend of Zelda” sentence!