Tim Tracy Senior Producer, GameSpot Live

Now Playing: Fire Emblem, Beyond Good & Evil Unable to play: Super Dodge Ball, Super Mario Bros. 3, Star Tropics, Many Others

The Five Stages of Grief

It's with a heavy heart that I have to report that recently, my beloved NES finally passed on to the great video game collection in the sky. After close to 17 years of tireless service, the 72 pins that made the magic happen for so many years finally just gave in and have refused to work any longer. Let me tell you, though, we've been through a lot together. All those countless sugared-up weekends spent playing Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy, Faxanadu, Castlevania and countless other games.

When I first moved out of my parents' house, you were there, waiting in my room while everyone else was playing Mortal Kombat 3 on the PlayStation. So many memories are tied to the fun we've had together over the years. For every R-rated movie my parents rented that they didn't want me to watch, there was a game rental to match every Friday night. When I was too awkward and shy to ask the girl that I really liked to my senior prom, you were there for me, keeping me company like you always did. It all came full circle when I married that same girl a few years later and I found out that her father drew the cover art to two of my favorite games of all time. I simply can't believe that it has to end like this. Out of all the consoles I've owned over the years, this is only the second one to ever break on me. The first was a Sega Game Gear, which got really hot and leaked battery acid all over my hands within the first couple hours of owning it. I promptly returned it and got a new one that served me well for many years.

Was it because I thought about buying a top-loading Famicom while I was in Japan recently? Well, for whatever reason it might have been, the fact of the matter is, I'm grieving over the loss of my dear NES. After a quick Google search, I learned that there are five stages to dealing with grief, and I've dealt with all of them in the past couple of days.

Denial. Perhaps I've just got a streak of luck going simply because this is really the first to just give up and die. At any rate, it's just not fair.	Anger. What the hell! I just bought Star Tropics 2, Heavy Barrel, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 from the Goodwill down the street! What right do you have to just give up on me!	Bargaining. Sure, my NES was old, but I still played it all the time. I'd gladly let my Dreamcast die a horrible death if you, my NES, would just come back to life!
Depression. I know it's that time of year when lots of people get sad because there's less sunlight, but I feel like I've lost an old friend here! We've had so many great times over the years. Why does it have to end like this?	Acceptance. Despite the fact that you're gone, you provided me with many, many years of great gaming. You might be gone now, but those experiences will never be forgotten.

While grieving, I got to thinking about why my NES' dying hit me so hard. I've got a room filled with tons of great games and consoles, but I always seemed to come back to my old Nintendo. Games these days have come a long way since the 8-bit days, but they've also lost something along the way--which is pure and unbridled gameplay. There are a bunch of stinkers in the NES library, but the great games it has have stood the test of time. They're still just as fun to play today as they were so long ago.

It's this simplicity--this absolute playability--that kept my NES in use for so long. The foundations of most of the games we play today were built on so many of these games, and the fact that so many of the characters and series that debuted on the NES are still around today, on this generation of hardware, is a testament to how great these games truly were and are. I'll certainly buy another NES very soon, but it's just a shame that it took the death of a console to make me realize exactly what it meant to me.