25 Years of Super Mario Bros. 190
harrymcc writes "On September 13th 1985, Nintendo released Super Mario Bros. for the Famicom (NES) in Japan. It went on to become the best-selling video game of all time, a title it only recently lost. Over at Technologizer, Benj Edwards is celebrating the anniversary with a look at some of the weirdest variations, spinoffs, and tributes the game has inspired over the years, from edibles to art projects."
The Guardian's games blog adds a bunch of Mario-related trivia, and CVG attempts to explain the history of Mario games. Nintendo is capitalizing on the anniversary by announcing an upcoming collection of classic Mario games (Japanese site, English explanation) that have been ported to the Wii.
What will google do? (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm already looking forward to the google doodle... Mario in js would be awesome...
Re:One of Commodore's best sellers (Score:3, Interesting)
I thought the 6502 was a Motorola reference design?
Re:The Best-Selling Video Game of All Time... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The Best-Selling Video Game of All Time... (Score:4, Interesting)
Not counting console bundled games like #1 Wii Sports (41.65m) #2 SMB (40.24m),and #4 Tetris ( bundled with original Gameboy, 30.26m), #5 Duck Hunt (included in the NES bundle that came with the orange gun, 28.31m), you might be surprised to find out that Pokemon games are the top contenders with the #3 overall spot held by Pokémon Red, Green, and Blue (31.38m) and #6 Pokémon Gold and Silver (23.11m).
Some other titles are #7 Nintendogs (21.60m), #8 Super Mario World (bundled with the SNES, 20.61m) and #9 Wii Play (20.30m).
Re:Heads up on that Mario collection (Score:3, Interesting)
The All-Stars version of Super Mario Bros. has inaccurate physics when jumping and breaking a brick, unfortunately. Mario keeps rising in altitude instead of immediately falling down, which sounds minor but affects you if you're used to running and hitting bricks without stopping like in the original.
For years, I thought I was the only one who ever noticed this, but I see that it's mentioned at TMK [themushroomkingdom.net].
Re:Twenty-five years? (Score:4, Interesting)
Interestingly, I think a lot of the old 8- and 16-bit games were difficult because of poor programming. Bad collision-detection and poor controls are high on the list of what made a lot of games hard. Super Mario Bros. head pretty bad controls--far from the worst on the NES, but probably the worst out of the entire series.
Then you have bad design patterns that were repeated over and over throughout the industry--enemies that respawn if a particular tile goes offscreen, being knocked back uncontrollably by enemies (often into pits), enemies which simply can't be avoided or killed no matter what you try... It's really a combination of these three which made Ninja Gaiden (and many other games) super hard. Difficulty without frustration is hard to achieve, but modern games do better at it.
Of course, death and repetition are what made games last any reasonable amount of time in the early NES days. Before you had passwords and saves, forcing you to master every level to get to the end was part of the experience. That's not universally true--some games like Metroid had an explorative element that extended playing time.
Re:Twenty-five years? (Score:1, Interesting)
I smashed an NES over that fucking game. Imagine the scene from "Office Space" where the printer gets a gang beatdown. That was me, at age 10. Hell, I tried *cheating* my way to finally beating it a couple of years ago.
I couldn't beat it with an emulator. That game is the hardest game I ever attempted.
Re:Twenty-five years? (Score:4, Interesting)
The 2600 uses a 6507, not a 6502
You are correct but it's the same difference really. Just as my 386SX laptop is still a 386, just minus some data lines. Or a 486SX4 is 486 but clocked three times faster. It's the same basic CPU, and yes Commodore owned the company (MOS) that made the 650x, 850x, and 65816. They basically got their PET, VIC20, C64, C128, Plus/4 and other computer CPUs for free (at cost).
Re:Twenty-five years? (Score:1, Interesting)
You know, one of the truly great things about Mario Bros., one of the reasons I still play it today, from time to time... The two-player mode is great if you want to be a vindictive bastard to your friends. :)
Heh heh. You mean like bumping a turtle onto its back, waiting for your friend to come along to give it the boot, and then at the last second bumping it back upright? Naw, I'd never do a thing like that. ;)