The other day Sundeep and I were talking about the impending console wars (a frequent topic of this very column) and were debating if Nintendo will find any success with the Revolution. The backward compatibility of the system promises to allow gamers to delve deep into Nintendo's software archives, downloading versions of old games for some sort of "moderate" fee. The prospect of playing these games again got us feeling rather nostalgic and we couldn't stop talking about our favorite games of yesteryear.

Since we couldn't stop thinking about it, we figured we'd continue the talks of old games in our column. While the list is literally never-ending, here are four of our favorite old-school games.

Sundeep: "Contra"

Contra, made famous on the NES, was incredibly difficult. It's not easy taking one guy through a series of levels battling robots, soldiers, mutants and other unusual enemies, while only being able to take a single hit from opponents. But then try and do that with two people.

Konami's famous side-scroller didn't have the same storyline in all of its releases. The original Japanese version took place in the 27th century with an unusual meteorite falling onto the Galuga (non-existent, for future reference) archipelago. You could play as one of two characters from the elite Contra task force, Lance Bean or Bill Rizer. The two are responsible for neutralizing the alien invasion and an associated terrorist group known as "Red Falcon."

The American version decided Rambo was much cooler than aliens and placed the story back in the present. Instead of Galuga, players fought in the Mayan temples of South America and the main characters were known as Mad Dog and Scorpion.

Of course, the present day American version never explained the armaments Mad Dog and Scorpion received during the game. To this day there has not been an answer to the Spread Gun (a gun which fired 5 simultaneous shots in an arced pattern), the Laser Gun (nope, we don't have that yet), the Fire Ball (the gun fired rounds in corkscrews, why?) and the Barrier (it's not a weapon, but it sure made you invincible to everything except falling into pits — stupid pits).

Ryan: "Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!"

There is little to dislike about "Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!" Everything from the colorful cast of characters to the cunning tactics required to defeat them was executed perfectly. Players laced up the gloves of Little Mac, a boxer dwarfed by every one of his opponents.

Perhaps the boxers themselves were the best part of "Punch Out," as many of my favorite memories are bits of their trash talk to Mac between rounds. That, and Bald Bull looked eerily similar to my one uncle. And good old Soda Popinksi, whose original name was Vodka Drunkenski. I think he best expressed his own alcoholism with: "I drink to prepare for a fight. Tonight I am very prepared!"

The simple controls still allowed for plenty of creativity, as Mac could dodge punches and throw his own, or simply counterpunch at the correct moment for a quick knockdown. Best yet was the uppercut unleashed after Mac earned a star during any round, which could knock down almost any opponent. The difficulty of "Punch-Out" is second-to-none, with later fights becoming nearly impossible to win.

While the "dream fight" with Mike Tyson was certainly fun, I don't know of many athletes today who aspire to someday fight the self-proclaimed "Baddest man on the planet." Then again, "Punch-Out" was made long before Tyson became bankrupt and started losing the majority of his fights.

Sundeep: "Tetris"

It's everyone's favorite Russian videogame — well, it's probably the only Russian video game anyone's ever heard of. When Tetris entered the video game scene in 1985 it was an immediate success. Great gaming is centered on simplicity and part of Tetris' success was hugely dependent on its wide range of accessibility. Anyone could play Tetris, and anyone could play it well. In addition, Tetris may have also shaped the success of handheld gaming when Nintendo first began packaging the game with its Game Boy system. Many bored students (my counterpart, to name one) spent the majority of their high school math classes assembling the Russian bricks on their TI-86 calculators.

Alexey Pajitnov originally created Tetris while working for the Academy of Sciences in Moscow. The game quickly spread without the creator or the Soviet government receiving any credit or funding. However, in 1989 a Soviet government branch called Elektronorgtechnica finally sold the arcade rights to Atari and the console and handheld rights to Nintendo.

Ryan: "Tecmo Super Bowl"

Tecmo's follow-up to its 1988 smash-hit built on the many successes of "Tecmo Bowl." This time around, players actually had their names (with the exceptions of Jim Kelly, Randall Cunningham and Bernie Kosar), as Tecmo had finally splurged for the NFL license. Players could now use actual NFL teams and, perhaps more importantly, play an entire season (including the Super Bowl and Pro Bowl) for the first time in football gaming history.

While Electronic Arts' "Madden" series has now popularized (and made standard) the vertical field vantage point, "Tecmo Super Bowl" is one of the few video games to feature a horizontal view of the field. Additionally, the game has full stat-tracking capabilities and offers some of the most entertaining and frenzied game play experiences to be had playing sports titles on the NES.

As anyone who's played "Super Bowl" will attest, the Oakland Raiders are second-to-none in the game. Bo Jackson was ridiculously unstoppable, often leading to arguments over whether or not the Raiders could be used.

Ryan ([email protected]) and Sundeep ([email protected]) are hopelessly addicted to video games. Sundeep has been desperately craving Warcraft III, but can't seem to find it anywhere. Still, he managed to watch "FFVII: Advent Children" … holy bejeezus. Ryan has been playing a lot of "X-Men Legends II" and can't wait to try "Ultimate Spider-Man."