Super Nintendo: A Great Christmas Gift for Children?

With all the new age video game consoles selling like hotcakes during the holidays, I wondered how the Super Nintendo would fare with today's consumers. Most of these consoles can cost a fortune and that can be a strain on a parent's wallet. Not only are these toys expensive, but they can also come with ultra-violent video games. I am not the conservative type on these issues, but games nowadays have gone a little too far with all the gore and adult situations. For example, Grand Theft Auto Series has been very well known for displaying such content. When I watch commercials on television, I noticed that most games released by consoles such as Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360 are shooters. Why would parents buy their kids these items if they are loaded with unnecessary garbage?

The Super Nintendo was first released around 1991 and sold tons of units in little time. The game Super Mario World was supposed to revolutionize not only Mario games in general, but video games too. Unlike the consoles from today, most games from the Super Nintendo aka SNES were platformers, sports, RPGs, and beat em ups. The beat em ups games were a little violent, but nothing like the games of today. Beat em ups such as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time game were one of them, but did not have bloody violence. The Super Nintendo would make an excellent gift for children under 13 and it is also very inexpensive on eBay. They range from 60-100 dollars brand new and you can find games for it for as low as five dollars. The games I recommend for children are Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario RPG, Legend of Zelda: Link to the past, Super Mario All-Stars, Chrono Trigger, Yoshi's Island, and Street Fighter 2. The game children should start with would be Super Mario All-Stars because it has games from the original Nintendo console such as Super Mario 1 and Super Mario 3. I just cannot imagine a child spending hours on games such as Halo, Counter Strike, and Call of Duty when they should be playing the games I mention because of the lack of violence in them. Information regarding the Super Nintendo was collected at gamespot.com.