As Mario — the world’s favourite plumber — turned 30 this week it seemed only right to give him an honourable mention on the blog. After all, it was Mario that got me hooked on gaming as a kid: playing the NES console whenever I could pry the controller from the hands of one of my many siblings.
Nintendo was a big part of my childhood. We had between us virtually every console that Nintendo produced: NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, Gamecube (still got that one), various Gameboys, the Nintendo DS and DS Lite and of course the Wii. It’s only really since I gained responsibilities and a job that I stopped playing regularly, so don’t keep up with the latest and greatest.
Going back to Mario: my favourite release probably has to be Super Mario Bros 3. To this day I’ve not played all the levels in all the worlds, because it was so easy to ‘cheat’ and warp ahead in the game. There is something about the simplicity of the graphics, the typical Mario baddies and genuinely difficult levels (maybe that’s just me?) that attracts me to it. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Super Mario Galaxy etc are visually stunning but give me a bit of old school gaming any day of the week.
Happy birthday Mario.
14 Sep at 12:53 am
Aww, I remember that one delightful night when my Grandparent’s house was broken in to and they stole our NES and all of the games except SMB3 which was eventually found under the bed. Yeah, leave me my favourite game and nothing to play it on.
It’s only been the best part of 25 years, of course i’m still not over it.
14 Sep at 9:08 am
How weird, someone broke into my mum’s house and took most of our N64 games too :/