Boy, people have sure been ribbing me about being negative lately on my iPhone Matters posts. Not sure if they missed how psyched I was to review the Jawbone or how excited I was at the prospects of using an iPhone as a barcode scanner.

But to somehow prove to people that my glass is not always half empty I want to share how much I love the NES Emulator on the iPhone.

Truth be told, the sound is crappy, the ROMs are buggy at best, and the controller is just plain useless without a tactile component to it but boy is it fun.

For me, playing Nintendo games on my iPhone brings me back to the days when I was in 7th grade reading Nintendo Power Magazine and scheming on how to score Bayou Billy for Christmas.

I remember keying in “Justin Bailey” to activate the power ups and purple leotard on Samus in Metroid. Or jumping just right on the same turtle shell for unlimited lives in Super Mario Brothers (World 3-1 to be exact). And who could forget the infamous Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right-B-A-Start for the 99 30 guys in Contra?

The original NES hit the U.S. at the perfect time for me: a time when I was both young and competitive. And had enough lawn cutting money to buy a ton of games. I remember telling my friends how the “2 players at the same time” feature in Double Dragon was going to change the way we played games. Or debating whether you could beat Mike Tyson without dodging punches for the entire first round. Those were the days that started my interest in gaming and in technology.

When I first heard about the iPhone, I drooled over the pictures much the same way I did in the late 80’s over the Nintendo Entertainment System Action Pack (With Duck Hunt and gun). I enjoy putting my iPhone through its paces. Testing it out in every condition. Mastering the interface. I now tell people how the iPhone will change the way people use their phones. It’s sort of a Double Dragon thing.

Don’t get me wrong: Castlevania, Kid Icarus, and 1942 aren’t as good as they were in 1988. But hearing “Flip for pass” in Blades of Steel and “Hubble Hibble” at the beginning of Double Dribble is about as close to a time machine as it could get for me. And the fact that I experience it all over again on the iPhone is simply beautiful in a strange “circle of life” way to me.

20 years from now, I will probably be blogging about the latest an greatest device and how you can load a vintage iPhone menu skin onto it. When that day comes, I will probably feel the same way as I do today.