Mike Tyson, Nintendo, and You

GamesUnited

   Anyone reading this has played Mike Tyson's Punchout for the NES. We all remember the fast action, great graphics, and Mario as the ref. What most people don't remember is letter included with the game, from (allegedly) Mike Tyson, to you, the player. Over the past few months, I have actually been more entertained by this letter than the game itself.

    I don't know who wrote this, but it obviously wasn't Tyson. "In essence, boxing is 10% physical and 90% mental and emotional." Uh-huh. I doubt Mike could write for week and come up with this (read it yourself). My point is that someone at Nintendo, probably a native Japanese-speaker, went to the trouble of writing this to somehow enhance the game.

    I guess I appreciate this additional effort, this going of the extra mile, which we really don't see too much anymore. Nintendo has always been good with this, as they used to include posters tip books and such in their games. Star Tropics immediately springs to mind, which contained a letter that you poured water on to reveal a necessary password for the game (lose it, and forget about playing past that point ever again). The Illusion of Gaia was packaged with a tee shirt for a while. Zelda 3 included a small guide book that contained the solutions to all the hard parts of the game.

    Don't think that I'm looking through the magical monocle of nostalgia here. A lot of that stuff was crap that got thrown away or lost within the first hour. But I would like to see more of this type of thing today. Notably, Ridge Racer R4 includes a high res version of the original PlayStation Ridge Racer. R4 is a great game on it's own, but this makes it even better. With CD-Roms being so inexpensive to produce, and DVD offering superlative storage space, hopefully we'll see more Ridge Racer style bonuses in the future.

    Back to the letter. My favorite line: "Never become angry -- it will inhibit your ability."  Irony, anyone?

To view a rather clumsy scan of the letter (133 kb), click here

Read the Punch Out FAQ

Let me know if this contrast burns your eyes.