The 7800 was the first console we ever got in our house and, quite honestly, it was a much bigger deal for my dad than it was for me. Choplifter captured his attention in a way that Y’s: the Vanished Omens never could… Maybe it was the controller design, the 7800 was the last system that didn’t ship with a control pad but rather an old fashioned joy stick, like the ColecoVisions he’d seen in the homes of his friends years before.

It didn’t take too long for me to talk my parents into purchasing an NES — my dad still fondly recalls the lies I told to induce them to make the big purchase (I pleaded with them, explaining that everyone else in the ENTIRE town already had a Nintendo and that they were the only parents in the whole 06371 zip code who were still holding out, which was not only unfair, it was also cruel — and somehow humiliating (there was a class war on, after all). When my dad brought up that the family next door still didn’t have a Nintendo, I had to think fast: “They’re getting one RIGHT now!” I squealed. Though in the end it wasn’t my unrelenting nagging/begging but my mom’s interest in the potential health benefits of the Power Pad that clinched it) — and not long after that I got a Genesis.

But there was still a period of several months when we’d make regular trips to the Kay Bee’s in the Crystal Mall or the Toys ‘R Us and I’d spend tens of minutes poring over the tens of flip-up, flattened laminated game boxes. Ninja Golf was perpetually sold out; the thin, white tear-off slips you’d need to take up to the teenager slumped in front of the locked glass case were always exhausted, only the heavy ‘Re-order’ card remained… and in some cases even that was gone.

But come on! After looking at this amazing packaging, how could anyone be happy settling for Dig Dug?

Atari Age provides an amazing gallery of Ninja Golf screen shots… I’m only now beginning to understand what I missed out on.