• Classic Video Game Review: Super Mario Brothers (NES)

  

  Written by Zeromage 3 Comments
  Last Updated:: April 16, 2008

  Super Mario, a character more recognizable than Mickey Mouse. What can we possibly say about this classic game that hasn’t already been said a thousand times before? It was one of the first, and quite possibly still the best video game out there. It went places no one else had ever been to, and for the time period the graphics were spectacular. Let’s face it, before this game came out all we had was Atari. Nintendo managed to bring us a game with sound, graphics and goombas.

  The premise: Two Italian Brothers with mustaches find a warp zone to the Mushroom Kingdom…At which point these two enter a plumbing nightmare pipe-dream (nothing like a crack reference in a children’s video game. Disclaimer) This is a kingdom so inept that apparently they were conquered by a group of turtles. Which brings us to Mario’s adversary: A tribe called Koopa. They’re an inept bunch, which isn’t saying much for the Mushroom Kingdom which has fallen under their rule. At this point we must ask ourselves if it’s really worth saving a kingdom of midgets who were so easily conquered by a tribe of mindless turtles. Turtles who freely walk off the side of cliffs and plunge to their deaths, or should we sit back and say “Evolution is telling us something here.”
  
  Regardless of their mental short-comings, the Koopa tribe was pretty cool. Take the Hammer Brothers for instance: Turtle-men carpenter brothers jumping back and forth between multi-tiered floating brick platforms, lobbing hammers into space until you scrolled into them. That was always a pretty awesome concept. And don’t even get us started with buzzy, those beetles sure were tough when you got them spinning. Not only did the game have some cool enemies, but it also had more secrets than the Blue Room of a Masonic Lodge. It was one of the first games to actually even have secrets, from the minus world, to hidden boxes to the trick to getting infinite 1-ups in world 3, the game was packed with them.

  And we can’t forget to mention the music. Who amongst us has never heard the Super Mario theme song or caught their grandmother tapping her toes to the gentle beats of the water level music? Or who hasn’t felt the pressure when the dungeon music speeds up and you realize you are mere seconds away from running out time? Koji Kondo’s digital symphony has touched each of us in our own special way.
  

  Of course, the highlight of the game was finally saving the princess. She was smokin even though they hadn’t pixelated cleavage yet. This is a game that had it all, bizarre villains, midgets, hot princesses, and wanton fireball destruction. All in all the original Super Mario Brothers was a fun game, but it also taught us some important life lessons: much like you can’t go back on a screen, you can’t go back in life. Once you make a choice you are stuck with it. Eat your vegetables and you’ll grow big and strong, and always chase stars, no matter where they lead you, and if you eat a flower you just end up spitting fire. With a little manual labour you’ll find gold coins in the most unlikely places.

  Our Rating:

3 Comments

1. #1 7212 says:
   March 19th, 2010 at 6:47 pm

   “Koji Kondo’s digital symphony has touched each of us in our own special way.”

   It’s okay. Now, show me on the doll.