But developers had only just begun their reign of injustice. After 37,000 hours of repeatedly hurling a NES controller into a wall out of frustration, hadn't we earned the right to some better finales? Today we will close those doors once and for all, the way they were meant to be closed. Old wrongs will be set right, and peace and harmony will return to your soul*.
Special thanks to http://www.vgmuseum.com/ for the source images and for making us rethink our entire childhoods.
*Results may vary.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Why it Sucked:
A pizza, huh? Yeah, we were probably going to do that anyway. That's pretty much our thing. You know how we know we would've eaten a pizza? Because we've been eating it for sustenance during the entire game. There were literally dozens of pies and slices strewn about randomly throughout the streets of every stage. There might have even been some soggy, polluted slices floating around in that ring of underwater hell known as the Hudson River bomb defusing stage, but we're all still trying to erase that from our collective memories.
What We Deserved:
A personalized perpetual drug dealer and some kinky mutant companionship goes a long way when your habitat is the final resting place for all of New York's defecation.
Wheel of Fortune: Family Edition
Why it Sucked:
We won a picture of a shipwreck? Or is it a prophetic still from the yet-to-be created film Waterworld? Either way, unless your family is composed of pirate ghosts, it's tough to get excited here. And if that's the case you should've spent the evening actually haunting and plundering the swarthy seas instead of sitting around playing Wheel of Fortune with your lineage, like us losers did.
What We Deserved:
Hey, we can dream. It's not like a videogame is going to be able to hand us some tangible prize, so if it's going to be a picture, it might as well be a picture of Vanna White in a thong. We didn't have the Internet back then, you judgmental prick.
Fester's Quest
Why it Sucked:
Fester's Quest ends with a single shot of the Addams Family surrounded by people thanking them for saving the world from aliens, but also with the horrifying realization that everyone in the world looks like Freddy Mercury. How we ended up in such a deranged dystopia is anyone's guess, but in a world where every subsequent videogame ending is accompanied by a chiptune rendition of "We are the Champions" even worth saving?
Some would argue "yes."
What We Deserved:
Because doing voice work for "Here Comes Peter Cottontail: The Movie" doesn't count, and the only "Legend of Chun Li" is the one where your friend supposedly paused at the exact moment during her lightning kick where you saw her panties.
P.O.W.: Prisoners of War
Why it Sucked:
Unlike the arcade version, the NES port of P.O.W. ditched the two-player co-op gameplay and sent you to war solo. So who are all these soldier douchebags and why did they just now show up to lend some camaraderie?
What We Deserved:
Get those cock blockers out of here! There's never anything wrong with a little alone time. And a lot of booze.
Mario's Time Machine
Why it Sucked:
Mario, Yoshi and... Bowser? Just chillin'? Bowser has been humbled, humiliated and devalued by everything from his many lava deaths to being hurled by his tail into a bomb, but to see him in tears just standing there is some seriously depressing shit. Not to mention Yoshi looks like a narcoleptic high school varsity table tennis mascot.
What We Deserved:
Every gamer had a grandma with a well-intentioned but ultimately ill-fated plan to hit Woolworths at 9 p.m. on Christmas Eve to buy you "that Mario game for the Nintenbox." What this usually resulted in was the world's fastest transition from anticipation to confused bewilderment as you ripped the wrapping paper off to reveal Mario's Time Machine. If you were one of the rare few to actually complete it, you deserve to play a legitimate entry in the Mario franchise. And a handwritten letter of apology from the creators of Mario's Time Machine.