Super Mario Brothers 3

Looks a lot better than the first 2 games did.

Go back (not to Jail, you may pass Go) and recall a time when games were new and fresh and exciting. That the latest game in a series didn't just introduce a single new gimmick like riding in a car, or throwing in bigger areas with more guns. Back when a sequel meant something worthwhile like a complete revamp of a game, adding in many MANY new features, spruced up graphics and a much bigger and more appealing adventure than the previous instalments of the games had produced. Now think of Super Mario Brothers 3.

Sadly the "Dogshit filled kebab" did not live up to this claim

Having reviewed game 1 and 2 (Doki Doki Panic re-skin version) it's about time I look at what could possibly be the BEST game on the Nintendo Entertainment System. So first of all, what's new and what's the same. Well, we still have Mario and Luigi doing what they normally do which involves jumping up and hitting blocks of "?" to gain coins and powerups. You still get bonus lives every 100 coins and you still can kick shells after jumping on them. There are also levels, 8 worlds and that's about where the similarities stop from the original game. Oh and Mario is still spelt the same but I'm running out of things to say here.

Every 80,000 points, you can find this little bonus. Match the cards to gain the item.

What's new? Roughly everything. It's still a platformer, you still move left and right, you still try to get to the end of the level and you still have bosses to kill at the end of each world. One of the biggest and foremost changes are that there's a world map. You can see each level on the map and routes to take to get to those levels, you can skip some levels or elect to do them all. You can see where bosses are and where item houses are for bonus items that can be used at the start of a level, giving you that item's effects before you begin the level.

This game does throw lives at you like it's going out of fashion.

Your items now range from mushrooms and flowers (larger and firepower respectively) to a leaf (giving flight and a tail to smack things) frog suit (for swimming) Cloud (to skip a level) hammer suit (turns you into a hammer brother) Tanooki suit (let's you change into a statue while able to fly like the leaf permits) stars (the old invincibility trick again) a hammer to smash blocks that can open access shortcuts or bonus places in the world map, whistles to warp across worlds, anchors to stop the boss flying across the land and a P-Wing which gives you unlimited flight (until hit).

Or have him castrated and toilet trained.

The sheer size and scope of the items themselves, is enough to make one wonder how it all fits into the game. Each world has between 4 and 11 levels that need to be navigated (or avoided) skipped and tackled as you navigate each level from start to Boss where upon you fight the boss in their flying airship (of wood and cannons) and then jump on them a few times. Within such levels you may encounter a whole host of different level types. Some will be standard levels with no height change, some might race up into the clouds if you can fly, some might be auto scrolling levels, some can be underwater levels (AND Auto scroll for bonus shit-kickies) and some are mazes of pipes and warps and doors where your biggest enemy is simply finding an exit before the time runs down and kills you.

Later levels really begin to throw the challenges at you.

The controls are much more precise than previous iterations of the series. You'll run, jump and smash blocks with surprising ease and accuracy very shortly after playing the game and making those "pixel perfect" leaps are much easier in this game than in the earlier ones. The use of the powerups is performed suitably well save for the idea that really it would have been nice to have had 3 buttons, one jump, one run, one "item/power" use but instead it falls onto the run button. However this ties in better with the flight mechanics as one needs prolonged running in order to build up the speed to launch oneself into the air with the grace and majesty of a turd covered brick with its arms out.

Big difference #1, a world map. It does give you some size and scope of the world.

Some of the earlier levels however feel really short in comparison to the earlier games. While some of the later levels can feel like overly long slogs through an unending onslaught of adversity and increasing difficulty where there's so much going on and so many potential routes that you'll want to try and visit them all but there's not enough time in the level in which to do that. While some of the powerups are so rare and infrequent that many players can go through the game repeatedly and NEVER see them (such as the hammer brothers suit, which for many a year was refuted as being a myth by many during the days before the internet was available as the World Wide Web).

Yay.... An ice world... Everyone loves those...

Though if you've seen the film "The Wizard" (California!) you'll already know about one of the warp whistles found in possibly the most unlikely and randomly hidden of places. But I'm not here to rip apart what was ostentatiously a film for the release of the game, it's shit and that's all I'm going to say on the matter regardless of comments and feedback. Back to the game.

It's not a series of Space Invaders shots, it's meant to be coins.

Each world brings a new theme and with it, new (usually) enemies. The variety and differences are quire stark for specific enemies. Going from the Goombas to the Angry Sun and Fire Snake to Bob-Ombs and beyond. Some enemies are simple sprite swaps and variations of other enemies while there's those that rarely and infrequently appear (Goombas in green boots on just ONE level in the entire game) and different sprite sets for every single boss, it's a lot for a game to have and this game does very well with it, especially compared to the original.

Line the face up and get bonus lives! Or balls it up like I have.

There's little here to criticise about the game save for it perhaps being TOO much new in too short a span of games. But that's a ridiculous comment and a poor one at that, just a comment for the sake of a comment that's barely relevant. It's a large, impressive and enormous expanse of a game that takes many players by surprise with the sheer scale and scope of the game, especially when compared to various games made later and made on more capable systems.

Sadly, this one doesn't want to be walked to the Slime Dungeon...

Accompanied by a very memorable soundtrack, clear and crisp effects that go almost perfectly hand-in-hand with this game, Super Mario Brothers 3 is one of THE games that everyone should play at least once in their lives. Take a look at a good platformer that's been done well and executed nearly flawlessly back when a game needed to be good to draw people in rather than being tagged with enough money to qualify for "Triple A" status.

One plumber vs. One Tank Platoon... Sounds rather fair.

And now to wear a turtle shell and lob hammers at people. My record was three windows, a car and an old lady before I was handcuffed, I hope to beat this record.

Super Mario Kart

Possibly the most fun racer on the console

Hi Kids, do you like driving? What do you meant "yes" you're not old enough. For those that wanted to drive and like the idea of driving but weren't specifically old enough to do it, there was Go-Karting. A wondrously fun little activity of driving around a track on a seat close enough to scrap your arse-flesh off if it was any close to the ground while replacement lawnmower engines turned wheels and let kids experience the "high speed" thrills of driving into walls. Thankfully Super Mario Kart on the SNES is a lot more fun and not just because I get to throw things other than bricks at people, again.

Your Roster: Pratt and brother, the annoying accelerators, the fatties and the extras

THE Kart racing game of the 16bit era and THE Kart racing franchise that has helped keep Nintendo afloat for a while by re-inventing the same game into new versions for the upcoming consoles that Nintendo have never done before or does with any other franchise it has (Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, Metroid... Seriously, how many times must I walk up and find a missile, or a flower or catch another fucking Pikachu...).

You win the small cup. Now man-up and go for a bigger race.

But enough digging commentary for the moment (it's only ever for the moment) what we have here is a grand scope of a game made possible by the use and clever implementation of Mode 7 on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Mode 7 being a specific function that allowed for the rapid and quick movement and re-drawing of sprites to scale, stretching and rotating that wasn't feasible before on the NES. Thanks to this, we get large colourful tracks that move fairly fluidly around the character sprite while we trundle along on the little wheels trying to pick up coins, powerups and ultimate bash the hell out of our enemies.

Lava lava everywhere and all of it is... mildly annoying.

The game has a starting line up of 8 characters to choose from. In that with most racing games there will be this little thing of having fast cars with slow acceleration, slow cars with fast acceleration, all-rounder cars and "something a bit either side of the all rounder if you want to be really fucking picky with" cars. You've Mario and Luigi as the all-rounders, Donkey Kong Jr and Bowser for the fast with slow acceleration cars, Peach and Yoshi for the quicker acceleration and finally Toad and KoopaTroopa for the extra little specification, which was previously listed.

A huge number one to obnoxiously proclaim your victory, probably more so than the player would.

During your races you'll be able to collect up to 10 coins to help boost your stats and lose them each time you fall off the track, drive into lava, drown, get hit by weapons and so on and forth though if you know the racing line well enough, it'll not be an issue. You'll also be able to collect multiple weapons ranging from the green shell which fires straight and bounces around, the red shell which is your heat seeking variety of shell, bananas to drop to the ground and let others run into it, stars which boost all stats to 10 and make you invincible to everything barring falling off the course, 2 extra coins (whoo...), mushrooms to boost your speed across even rough terrain and improvise shortcuts, ghosts to steal other items while making you ethereal, feathers to jump over items and walls for more shortcuts and the lightning bolt which shrinks everyone else and lets you run them over.

Quite a lot.

If you're being attacked, you get the mildly obscured "rear view" which MIGHT help you.

However, this being the first days of Kart gaming for Nintendo, the AI isn't quite as "human" as one might hope for or even expect. Weapons are pre-designated for specific characters and fire/use them in different ways than you can in most cases. For example, Bowser has a fireball that moves back and forth on the track, you don't. Mario and Luigi as AI can use invincibility stars when they choose, you can't. Peach and Toad drop/throw mushrooms that shrink you, you can't do that either. Yoshi hurls eggs, you can't even get them. But then none of them can use the lightning bolt or use boosters across heavy terrain, or feathers to get around corners/walls. Though having said that, they can run over items and use them as ramps rather than getting hit.

Solo time trial. For the gamer that REALLY plays alone.

Another odd instance is that, apart from the starting line-up, all the AI will race along the exact same racing line bar a few movements here and there. There is very VERY little deviation from one racer to the next in how they navigate the track. Which means that the items you drop MUST be carefully placed, but if you can always drop them in that place, you've a powerful advantage (or you get hit by your own stuff). The AI also manages to keep track with you despite how fast you can go for the most part. Though is some levels there are so many chevron speed boosts that a decent player can lap every single other cart (meaning you beat the 3 laps before the carts manage to do 2).

Without doubt, the most fun part of the game by far.

There's lots of choice within the game, you've 20 different tracks for a start, 4 different cups to race through and multiple engine sizes from 50cc to 150cc which gives a higher/faster challenge with more aggressive AI opponents, which the last set of tracks are notoriously difficult and have the deadly Rainbow Road, which means you've got to keep on the track fully as there's no walls to bounce off and the Thwomps are invincible (though the AI drives through them). However, it's early days and the fact there's so many different tracks leaves the single (and 2 player) Grand Prix mode with a lot of potential and hope.

If only that was all the game had.

You will be punished heavily if hit by something when 3-4 cars over take you on a single mistake

There's also the VS mode where 2 players race head to head on a track of their choosing. No other AI around it's just player 1 and player 2 gunning their engines and slowly trundling off before speed boosts and power ups begin to break up the pace of the level. Or use it as a chance to exploit cheats, explore shortcuts and generally take a less intense race at the game. But that's not the cream of the crop for this game.

That's the battle mode.

3 lives, that's it. Winner stays in, loser sits in the corner.

Simple, pure, fun. How best I can describe it. You've yourself, your friend/enemy in 1 of 4 tracks designed symmetrically (some of which are quite large) and a 3 balloons. If you take a hit, you lose a balloon and after a while the power ups replenish and the weapons becomes more regularly found and fired. You don't get the lightning bolt either but since the focus will be mostly on weapons like green and red shells, you're either playing ricochet with the bouncing green shells or you're trying to bank shots around corners after your opponent with the curving movements of the red shells.

If you've a feather (or enough speed) you can jump the gap for the shorcut. Or fall.

It's fast, it's frantic and it's fun when two players know the level, can power slide around corners and generally are very capable drivers for a fun (relatively) simple game. Even this mode on its own is wonderful as it is, at times it feels like this is the whole point of Mario Kart and that the Grand Prix and AI racers are a tacked on bonus to what is a fun way to duel each other to do the deflation.

Super Mario Brothers

For what might be one of the most iconic platformers, possibly of all time and the most definitive article in establishing the 8bit gaming era, Super Mario Brothers (on the NES) is one of the most played and purchased games of all time (or at least, very heavily disputed to be as such). But we're not here to discuss the validity of such claims as if we're some over-inflated, self-important, critical analysis of gaming. We're an over-inflated, self-important, game reviewer. A completely different kind of asshole, but still as much of an asshole as anyone else.

The general idea of the game is as such, Mario (a plumber... bear with me on this one) is tasked with rescuing a princess who has been kidnapped by a large turtle/ox thing, called Bowser (Or King Koopa... or both, depends which manual you read on this one really). To get her back, he's going to have to run through the Mushroom Kingdom and travel 8 zones/worlds, each made of 4 sub-zones/levels, and battle Bowser to save the princess and consequentially, the day.

On the way you'll do all the things known and loved in most Mario games. Namely, running, jumping and punching blocks above your head. Oh and landing on things, Mario loves to land on things. Which highlights nicely how different we all take things as I'd end up with a long, arduous slog through whole armies of turtles, mushrooms, weaponised-clouds and armour-plated beetle-things; duelling giant turtle ox creatures in castles over moats of lava while sweating through the heat and exhaustion of battling a creature twice my size and trying not to succumb to the tiredness of the mammoth task; drop-kicking hammer-throwing turtles into large pipes and feeding them to the voracious plant-traps that live in some of those pipes unless they provide me the information to find and use the secret warp pipes; before rescuing the Princess and walking alone into the sunset to ready myself for another day of fighting the same armies.

Mario takes the light-hearted approach, he'll run, he'll jump, he'll eat a magical mushroom (this is for kids?) and grow to twice his size before collecting a flower and throwing fireballs at his enemies, or a star and just running through them with his indestructible (save for falling to his death and running out of time) status. He'll collect coins for extra lives and use warp pipes to get to hidden areas and zones, swim underwater and run across bridges and platforms before hop, skip and jumping his way through castles and side-stepping bosses before being told the real princess is in another castle. Unless it's World 8 of course.

It's simple, it's effective and it has a lot of hidden depth within the game.

The levels do get progressively harder but there's never really anything that screams at being hugely unfair. There is nothing in this game that is on the levels of platform-hell games like I Wanna Be The Guy or CloudBerry Princess (in its later levels at least) where death is often the ONLY option unless you're the computer and even then... It's a pure game. I don't have to worry about combos, or special moves done only with sequences of buttons and controls, I just have to move right (duck and climb rarely), jump when I need to jump and run/shoot when I feel the need to.

At first.

The game becomes more complicated and more interesting in the later zones when you get to meet up with enemies that can survive being landed upon, such as the turtles, but then become ammunition for being kicked across the floor and taking out more enemies, which sets off the multiplier bonuses for accumulating scores and clearing out your adversaries. Just be care in case it bounces and comes back, then you're in trouble if it hits you. Other enemies might be better to just bounce off and land on others for combo points or killed (if you have it) with fire/flower power. While later enemies will be tougher and some immune to being hit with your shoes but not fireballs, while others are immune to fireballs but not the shoes.

To mix it up, there are a few themes within the levels. The underground levels tend to have a roof over them which will let you run along and bypass some/all of the level and access the secret warp zones. Some levels are underwater and tapping jump will allow you to swim in some fashion but now you cannot land on enemies. Other levels are more a series of platforms suspended in the air rather than having ground to run along and the 4th level of each world is a large castle with variable heights and floors with lava and fire themed traps and obstacles. There's plenty of variation and with each new world, new setups and different enemies.

Speaking of which, the enemies are quite varied in their inception and design. There's the usual low grade enemy of the Goomba which takes one hit of anything from landing on or a fireball to disperse. Turtles that either mindlessly walk onwards or patrol platforms that can be kicked after landing on them to destroy other enemies. Turtles that can bounce or fly, making for less predictable enemies than their ground-bound cousins. Large bullets that fly the distance of the screen sometimes from random heights or sometimes from cannons. Clouds that roam the skies with a little bastard hidden inside that throws out spiked enemies that can't be jumped upon. Squids, fish (swimming and flying varieties), fireballs, water, pits, lava, swinging lengths of fireballs, bosses and turtles that throw hammers at you are all included and several more enemies that I'll likely remember after publishing this write up. It's a grand old world out there and the population is varied and colourful.

On top of that are the many secret pipe routes. Through the game you can explore Mario's Plumber roots and take trips down specific pipes (no indication as to which pipes WORK, you just have to jump on and try to... Piranha Plants, knew I'd remember more enemies... press down so that you can descend into the pipe) and find secret rooms usually laden with coins and perhaps a power up or multi-coin block, before ascending a way ahead of the level you were previously in. While other levels will have bean-stalks that grow up into the ceiling, allowing you to climb up and explore the upper areas where you'll find lots of coins and collectibles and maybe even a few secret warp pipes (if you're on Level 4-2).

Control wise, you can run and leap bounce and jump and so on with relatively good control in mid-air after jumping (yep, realism), and there's a good level of inertia and sliding when coming to a stop but nothing excessive and nothing that really ends with you sliding off the end of a platform into the eternal ether that is the lost life pit. Swimming adds a little extra problem over certain holes and areas where you'll be sucked down rapidly with NO indication where these undercurrents are... Aside from recalling where you died previously, but that's hardly a fair measure of progress.

It's bright, it's smooth, and it’s simple for the most part with only the real challenges coming from later worlds and castles where the route you take through a castle determines success or repeating a section of castle again. Even the music is so catchy and well known nowadays that most people can simply just say "Mario" and have someone immediately start thinking of the first few bars of the main level music. Slight variations for underground levels and water levels and the castle/boss levels but the majority of what you're playing will be the standard tune, which thankfully is cheerful enough to be memorable without being annoying. Most of the time.

Nowadays, it's still a firm staple of gaming and which many games emulate in some manner or another, being that the ground was laid back then, many platforming games try to copy it and fail hopelessly at the task. It takes a considerable effort to match this game and takes a great deal more to be considered "as good" and even rarer is being seen as "better", especially if it's not another Mario game.