Of Mushrooms and Princesses

I've never been much of a gamer, but I have loved the Nintendo series of Mario games pretty much from the start. The original Nintendo was released in the fall of 1985 and my brothers and I begged my parents to get it for Christmas, but they insisted that the system and games ($30/game!!) were just too expensive. So it became one of the best days EVER when that Christmas morning, "Santa Claus" delivered a sparkling new Nintendo system and the game that came with it, as we all now know, was Super Mario Bros.

It was a mad scramble to get it hooked up the TV in the family room and thus began the many, many, many, MANY hours I would spend playing this game and its subsequent sequels. Among my favorites were Super Mario Bros 3, where Mario could gain the raccoon tail to knock out his opponents, and of course, Super Mario Kart, where Mario raced against some of his classic opponents in a knock around go-kart style that included the ability to knock off others with heat-seeking mushrooms and banana peels. And of course, Mario's cause was always the noble one-- to flatten the evil dragons in quest to rescue the princess!

After college though, despite the newer releases on Nintendo 64, Game Cube, etc., Mario seemed to leave my life. Until last month, when I was home visiting. I was headed to bed after a nice visit with my mom. I walked by the kids game room, where my 15-year old nephew (Tyler) has all the latest games like Xbox 360, Playstation 24, and Portable Whatever-they-are-calling-it-these-days. But much to my surprise, I heard a very familiar tune coming from the room, so I poked my head in and EUREKA, they are playing the original Super Mario Bros on an original Nintendo machine that he found in the garage of my parents house. Somehow, after all these years, the system and game were still working and my nephew and his friend were playing it in all its glory. Tyler, he who spends many hours playing the latest games with people he doesn't know on the internet, with the infinite layers these games have, said the simplicity of the game intrigued, and frankly, vexed him. I promptly said "Move over kids, let the old timer show you how its done!". And despite the fact that I haven't played the game in well over 10 years, I somehow was able to remember where the secret warp zones and extra coins where! The next day, I told my brother Joe about it, who used to hang out in my room and watch me play, and it was game on like 1986 all over again.

The other instance came this week when my colleague Leslie mentioned she recently received a GameBoy DS for a gift. (that's DS, as in Double Screen, to the uniformed like me) She had the Mario Kart game and I asked if I could play for a bit. I did, and said it was fun, and she told me that I should buy one too so we could play against each other! I was tempted..... But what really pushed me over the edge was yesterday she brought in the Super Mario Bros game for the system. I thought I would play for a few min like I did with the other game, but over an hour and completing 2 worlds later, I was hooked. Its an updating of the game with some fun twists (there's a BIG mushroom which allows you to smash everything on the screen and also a tiny mushroom which allows you to go places you couldn't otherwise, etc etc) but still the same over simplistic yet oddly engrossing set-up-- smash mushrooms, collect coins, save princess.

As it should be.

** For anyone who is into this like me, check out details on the new Wii from Nintendo. Looks prety awesome to me...