The best games never created? That’s the theme of Meteor’s Famicase 2009, a celebration of wishful game art designed to pay tribute to Nintendo’s influential Famicom home game console.
Nintendo’s Famicom – NES to those in most non-Asian parts of the world – exploded onto the gaming scene in the mid-1980s. The NES introduced home video gaming to millions and did much to make Nintendo the global gaming powerhouse it is today.
Enough time has passed for the NES/Famicom to have reached the status of nostalgia and the My Famicase Exhibition now (May 2-31 of 2009) happening at Japan’s Meteor store confirms the high regard today’s gamers have for the amazing (for its time) NES.
As Brandon Boyer of Offworld relates, as many as 58 designer game art labels are on display at Meteor; many of which ape the lovably primitive 8-bit style typical of NES games from the mid-eighties. One of the most amusing while really pushing the whole "aping" theme is "Bush Jr.", the game. Bush Jr. manages to satirize the 43rd president and pay homage to Donkey Kong Jr. at the same time – quite an achievement!
According to Tokyo-based web producer, illustrator and now faux video game designer Hawken King, "On my original sketch, Bush was climbing onto the twin towers fending off aeroplanes like King Kong. I also had drawn bad-guys scaling the twin towers that he would have to kick down. Perhaps his friend Tony Blair could join him on the other tower as a two player game!"
King (Hawken, not Kong) adds a few ingeniously subtle touches to the label such as his company/website name Dadako styled like Nintendo and notes the publisher as GWBSOFT. Above the Twin Tower image is "Family Size" in Japanese.
Check out the many other retrocool NES labels at Meteor if you can; as mentioned the exhibition continues to the end of May so give it a glance if you’re, er, game. (via TokyoMango)
