Follow @james_tanner123 September is here and I am psyched. My poker tourny resumes, camp starts soon and there will even soon be actual things for me to write about.
No real Coyotes news, so I thought I'd just muse for a second on the possibilities of this upcoming season.
On one hand, you have the near consensus pick for them to be one of the worst teams in the NHL. Even I myself tend to gravitate to that direction whenever someone brings up how many bottom six forwards the Coyotes have and how they will employ Nick Grossman on the back-end.
On the other, there is a ton of potential here and it might be realized sooner than anyone thinks.
Coyotes the Bad:
The team doesn't make any more moves before the season starts. They send every rookie back to the farm except for Domi and Duclair. They dress Antoine Vermette as their second-line centre and give way too much ice time to veteren blueliners. Hanzal gets injured and Boedker fails to breakout. Smith doesn't perform, and Murphy and Gormley continue to struggle and the team is out of it by November dressing a lineup like this:
Boedker- Hanzal - Domi Duclair - Vermette - Doan Rieder - Richardson - Downie Cunningham - Vitale - Chipchura
OEL - Michalek Dahlbeck - Stone Grossman - Murpphy
This team will be slaughtered and finish last in the NHL.
Martin Hanzel is healthy and performs well. Boedker finally breaks out. Domi is among the rookie of the year candidates, Duclair sticks in the NHL, Samuelsson finally gets a crack and performs well. OEL continues his loud ascension and Stone continues his quiet one. Murphy and Gormley both live up to expectations, Smith returns to the form he showed near the end of last season and Vermette and Doan don't play higher than the third line and are not allowed anywhere near the power play.
They make a move to acquire a young potentially top-line centre in exchange for picks/prospects and maybe even consider adding a winger like JVR to the fold or a D like Cody Franson.
Kids like Samuelsson, Gormley, Strome, Dvorak, Perlini and Lessio are given fair chances to make the team and Nick Grossman is not deployed very much, if at all.
They would dress a lineup something like this:
Duclair - Hanzal -Domi Boedker - Strome - Perlini Samuelsson - Vermette - Doan (only because I'm resigned to those two being here; they shouldn't be. ) Chipchura - Richardson - Downie
OEL - Stone Gormley - Murphy Dahlbeck - Michalek
Now, I don't think this team is going to make the Playoffs either, but they at least have the chance to surprise some people and be exciting to watch. They would also be able to score while sacrificing almost nothing to ice this kind of lineup.
Anyways, I am sure we'll see something in the middle of both these examples and it will be an interesting year regardless. The fact is, with Domi, Strome, OEL, Duclair, Perlini, Dvorak and Samuelsson, not to mention Stone and Murphy, the Coyotes are going to be very very very good, very soon.
NES COUNTDOWN CONCLUSION:
Now that I've made you sit still for the hockey stuff, let's get on to the real reason you're here: You want to know how some rando hockey blogger guy ranks his favorite vids from a 30 year old system.
Pre-countdown sidenote: Amazingly, there are still people who design and sell cartridges that will work on an old NES but that are new games. That is awesome. If I had a working Nintendo, I'd totally order one just for fun.
Recap: 10. R.C Pro.Am 9. Battletoads 8. RBI Baseball 7. A Boy and His Blob 6. Metal Gear
5. The Legend of Zelda
This is obviously going to be on anyone's list, because it's easily one of the greatest games ever, and not just NES. When I was a kid (not that you'd care) my parents bought it for me for "being good at the dentist" when I got my first cavity.
However, now that I'm older and am not above using similar tricks, it's clear my Dad bought it for himself and used that as a front to spend some cash on a video game. It's also the only game besides Dr. Mario that I can remember my Mom ever playing.
And the first game I ever beat. Hooray.
4. StarTropics
One of the last games I ever got for Nintendo, was StarTropics. Your uncle Mike has sent you to a jungle maze dungeon area on some island. You use a submarine and fight with a yo-yo, which, after rakes, is the best way to fight.
As an adult it was way harder to beat than Zelda, and that's why I rank it higher. Plus, its just one of the best designed and most fun games to play on any system. A bit of a platform/RPG hybrid, I love this game.
3. Shadowgate
One sweet thing about becoming an amnesiac would be to get to go back and watch Breaking Bad again. Another would be playing Shadowgate without remembering how to beat its insane logic and make connections that only make sense because you've tried every other way.
To my great shame I had to cheat and go online to beat at least two parts of this game. I know, I am weak. Still, the only thing stopping it from being the best game ever is the two games I'm about to tell you about.
2. Final Fantasy
Having at least put a few hours into almost all of the FF games, I can say that only #7 comes anywhere close to #1.
The replay-ability of the party system makes this game a blast. Your characters grow up, your karate Man becomes awesome and you learn Nuke.
When we finally beat this game and destroyed Chaos (I played with my dad and his friend Ernie, and I had to level up while they were at work so we could do the quest together) we all jumped into the air and reset the system (which was on the floor) by making the cartridge pop up.
I've probably beat this game five different ways, at least. But not with 4 Black Mages, that's crazy.
1. Maniac Mansion
Mario and Megaman games are boring to me now. I just don't care for frustrating platformers that can't be beat because of ridiculously bad controls.
I did love those games as a kid, but now they just don't do it for me. Mario 3 was fun, a few years ago my buddy Brian and myself devoted a whole day to trying to beat it without using any pwings or warps.
Our conclusion: it can be done, but most people who say they've beat the game that way have to be lying, because I can beat Mike Tyson and the Battletoads racing level, and parts of Mario 3 are so crazy hard I can't do it. Maybe I'm just not a platformer, who knows.
Best game of all time though? Maniac Mansion. Its funny, just the right level of difficulty and unlike Shadowgate, most of it's clues can be deduced by thinking and not just trying random stuff that would otherwise make no sense.
I love Maniac Mansion, it's my favorite video game and nothing else is close.