It’s strange how quickly time goes by, isn’t it? It feels like it was only yesterday where I’d spend Friday nights between Nintendo’s chat rooms and the good old SNES (playing Chrono Trigger), but the fact of the matter is that it’s been over 10 years since those days. Let us go back to the year 1995, when Nintendo launched the Nintendo Power Source on America Online. The NPS was the official online community for all things Nintendo, and was one of the main reasons I convinced my Dad that the Internet was the way of the future. Not only would I be able to read about video games all day, and get news before the magazines did, but I’d also be able to chat it up with fellow gamers. Of course I told him the Internet did other things too, like get the type of news he was interested in, and of course send something called “e-mail” around.

The Nintendo Power Source itself wasn’t actually anything all that special, which was a let down. It didn’t offer many previews that weren’t already in Nintendo Power (although you would occasionally get a screen shot from a new game), and the downloads available were throw aways, either a handful of old screen shots or some midi music from SNES titles. The real fun of the site lay in the “Play it Loud” area, a section of the site which contained two chat rooms, the Power Circuit and the Power Outlet. The Power Circuit was the chat room to hang out in, and for good reason, because every weeknight from 7 to 8 (eastern time) one of Nintendo’s “Cyber Jocks” would be there chatting to fellow gamers.

The Cyber Jocks
Ah the Cyber Jocks, what would we have done without you? A Cyber Jock was a Game Counselor at Nintendo of America who would join the Power Circuit to chat. The idea was for the Jock to share game tips, news, and shoot the breeze with game talk.

The first of the bunch was Paul Hawkins who went by the screen name NOA Paul (later turned NOA Paul H). Paul was likely your average 20-something year old who was working as a game counselor just to make enough dough to keep paying for school and his rent, but to us? He was almost god like. I mean, the guy actually worked inside of the REAL Nintendo! Isn’t that awesome? When you’re an 8th grader, I guess so. Needless to say it was enough to cause a decent lot of fan boys to hit up the chat room daily and get their fix.

Thanks to the success of Paul, Nintendo eventually introduced other Cyber Jocks, Travis Williams (NOA Travis) and Amy Janas (NOA Amy, later NOA Amy J). Each of the nerds, I mean jocks, got their own hour slot every night. It’s interesting to note that Nintendo’s Dan Owsen was regular part of the group. That man actually did have credentials, like translating A Link to the Past and Earthbound among others.

Eventually Paul started his own “exclusive” club. This ever so elusive club, called Club de Paul (CDP), promised to be the premier Nintendo club, but there was a catch. Not only was it invite only, but there was a cut off of 50 members tops. When this was announced, it was basically anarchy. All the fan boys wanted their shot to prove to Paul that they had what it took to be a member. Of course I wanted to be in it as well, but I didn’t pester the man every single night writing “CAN I BE IN CDP!?!?” over and over again.

It was getting close to the cut off, a friend of mine and I were beginning to feel the pressure. How were we going to get in? We joined the chat regularly, and we were some of the few who actually talked games and didn’t type in CAPS the entire time. One of the problems is that the jocks were actually becoming close to some of their chatters, and no one would talk games anymore. The chat rooms basically turned into watching a few of the fan favorites have conversations full of inside jokes with the jocks. Things were getting duller by the moment.

AOL’s old chat room

One night, I was talking to a new guy during Paul’s chat session. We hit it off a little to well, and for some reason Paul decided to invite the two of us into his club. Well, it turns out that the new guy was actually my buddy, he just made a different screen name. Basically, he was invited to the club because Paul liked his new screen name. Regardless, we were both excited to be in it. However, it didn’t take long for us to realize what a crock of crap it was. The club was basically a mailing list that consisted of all their favorite chatters, and the in jokes now extended from the chat room into my mailbox. Basically, it was worthless, and not worth all the hassle. It wasn’t long after that this high prestige club fell apart.

Not only did CDP fall apart, but so did Paul’s popularity. It only took a few months for NOA Travis to become the top Cyber Jock, and NOA Amy was close behind simply because she was kind of cute, was a girl, and liked video games. About two years after his debut, Paul Hawkins left Nintendo, as he likely graduated school or something to that effect. Though some say he couldn’t handle the downfall of his reign, and road deep into the sunset on his motorcycle, never to return.

I actually became rather friendly with NOA Travis. Even though he was terribly guilty of having favorites, the guy seemed to enjoy talking games. If I remember correctly, even after he left Nintendo I still spoke to him on occasion through IM.

The Cyber Jocks were clearly the main draw of the chat rooms, and I believe it worked. They didn’t talk games as much as they probably should have, but it didn’t seem to matter.

Camp Hyrule
If memory serves me correctly, the very first Camp Hyrule was put together in the summer of ’96. Actually, I know for a fact that I’m right because it was only a few months before the Nintendo 64 came out, and they were giving away Virtual Boys and copies of Tetris Attack for the SNES. Camp Hyrule sounded like it was going to be this amazing experience, but it turned out to be nothing more than having more Cyber Jocks to speak to during different times of the day. There were a few fun activities, and prizes being handed out, but that was the extent of the excitement. I joined Camp Hyrule for the following four years, with my interest in it dying out a little more with each go around.

During the second year at Camp Hyrule, I managed to win a set of Nintendo plush dolls, which I’m ashamed to admit are still displayed on my shelf. I also received a Nintendo 64 folder signed by all the game counselors who helped “run” the event. It’s worth noting that Camp Hyrule is still ran every summer at Nintendo.com.

How much do you think this will sell on eBay? 1 dollar?

The Great Move to the Internets
Sometime during 1997, NOA Travis broke the news that Nintendo would be leaving AOL and would have a new home on their own servers. Of course we were all angry at the time, how dare they leave us behind? So Nintendo left and the Nintendo Power Source ceased to exist. Their new home on the net was not a pleasurable experience at the start. Nintendo.com was an extremely graphic intensive site at the time (remeber, a 56k modem was top of the line those days), had “frames” which made for awful browsing, and my old computer at the old time couldn’t run Java applications, so I couldn’t join their new chat room which was renamed the Loudhouse. Basically, I was screwed for a while.

As time went on, and web technology became more advanced (and getting a new computer helped) the website became more accessible. For me though, things were never the same after that point. Maybe I was growing up? Probably not. Yeah I continued to hang around, and like I said, I was in Camp Hyrule for a few years, but that was about it for me. It was better that they left AOL, the crappy service it is, but the Nintendo Power Source seemed to give AOL some worth back in the day. It wasn’t long after Nintendo left AOL that I t left the service as well.

Once in a while a bit of nostalgia will come over me and I’ll head on over to Nintendo.com’s boards. I’ll post a message or two as my alter ego, but I usually get ignored. Just because my post count is only around 30 messages, people think I’m a new guy not worth listening to. If only they knew, huh?

That sums up most of my memories from the Nintendo Power Source from back in the day. I tried to wiki the old NPS, or the Loudhouse, or anything from those days but nothing came up. Maybe someone can use this as a primer to get started.