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 2

REDdy for the new characters? I wasn't.

Ok, let's get the geek wank out of the way by me saying that this Super Mario Brothers 2. I don't want to hear the usual crap of people blathering out that the game is actually "Doki Doki Panic" of which I don't care. Nor do I care that it's not "The true Super Mario Brothers" known as the Lost Levels. Even more do I not care that this game was sold back to Japan as Super Mario 2 USA and basically was Doki Doki Panic being re-painted and resold... as a game already released and sold in the first place.

Actually, all hats off to Nintendo for selling the same thing twice and broken teeth for everyone who didn't realise at the time that this would be an ongoing pattern of selling us the same game again. "Oh hello Zelda franchise, another Hook shot you say? Another fucking water temple too you say? Well come take another fifty notes out of my sky-rocket while I roll out the barrel, drop my trousers to my ankles and hand you the hot spice lube"

Rant over. (yeah, right...)

Get used to this enemy, you'll see him... her... it, a lot.

Let's take a look at what we have. It's a completely different engine of a game compared to Super Mario Brothers and if you're expecting more than go play the Lost Levels or perhaps a Kaizo Mario level... Please post up a video of you playing it on your first run through though. We'll happily laugh at your misery. For those still here, this is a game that takes a very different approach to the original game. Though do remember, it's a sprite swap of a game.

First a start, you can select one of four characters each with their own stats in jumping, running while holding something, and one can float. Your characters main methods of attack is to pick stuff up and throw it at something else. This includes most enemies in the game, jump on it (But... That kills things??? No, prick, it doesn't) and you can ride it around like you've hi-jacked an old aged pensioner until you decided to hoist it up over your head and turn it into a projectile of death, or it gets thrown to the ground, rights itself upright and resumes attempting to be a pain in your arse.

Taking a tip from the TARDIS, some pots and routes are deceptive large.

That is your Modus Operandi for this game, pick stuff up and lob it. Though don't throw the baby out with the bath water just yet. As a game it's very bright, very colourful and certainly a lot more visually appealing than the original was. The controls are more responsive than the original and movement can catch players off guard if they're used to the formers almost sluggish acceleration compared to this. Unless you're Luigi, in which case welcome to inertia and make friends with it. Mario is your average man, Luigi the high-jumper with slippy shoes on, Toad the plucky strongman and Princess being the weakest but can float over ravines.

The more interesting facet of this game is that there's usually more than one way in which to beat a level. Some ways are more obvious than others while whole sections can be by-passed by abusing high jumping with a leaping enemy you're riding on, or using the floater to navigate annoying ledges and back under them to warp pipes and such.

Yep... Whales. With spouts and blowholes. Having a whale of time here.

There's a lot more the weapons and inventory to play around with it this game. You start with 2 health points and can gather more IF you a) find a magic potion, b) drop it to make a magic door, c) hope the dark world that houses coins underground, has a magic mushroom you can pick up to boost your HP by a point FOR THAT LEVEL ALONE. On top of that, if you pick up 5 healthy veggies, you get a time stopper, grabbing 5 cherries grants you an invincibility star and there's other items from Shells that you can ride and kill enemies (watch for jumping ones though) keys to unlock door (and likely get chased the whole time) and items like rockets that take you ahead in the level.

From the first screen, you'll notice this game scrolls in the 4 main compass directions. Which then leads into the problem in some levels where you don't know where the bottom of the level is leading to the death-pits. Because the screen doesn't scroll unless you're near the bottom of where you can see, so by that point, it's usually too late to do anything about stopping your descent and you get a nice life to vanish.

Level over! So everyone sodded off for a while and a bird's head was rather surprised

If you're lucky during a level you might have collected a coin or 14 and get to spin a fruit machine to try and win more lives. Good luck with that, though there is a timing point where you can usually win one or two lives with cherries, and sometimes 5 lives from it. Aside from that, you've a fairly varied game with a steadily increasing challenge though it can feel a little under populated at times for enemies and challenges.

You've your grassy normal lands that tend to mess about in the clouds from time to time, desert levels, ice levels, some underground focus levels, levels with high climbs and long falls. There's less levels than in the original but there's a lot more variety and flavour in the selection rather than having just a large, plain, selection.

The only chance some people will get a life, is here.

Enemies come in many flavours (sick joke avoided there... perhaps) with the usual walkers and runners, leaping enemies, enemies that shoot at you, enemies that are taller and can't be picked up. The puzzles in the game range from getting bomb a to wall b at times while some make you use enemies as a safe-platform in which to navigate over spikes or gaping chasms which can be somewhat jarring if you're not quite used to the fact that landing on enemies here usually doesn't kill them.

Oh and there's Birdo. The odd looking... thing that spits out eggs (at first) and serves as a low-boss for most of the ends of the levels and at the end of each world is one of a few bosses. A rat with shades on that throws bombs, a crab that hurls rocks, a 3-headed snake that gobs fireballs, a large fireball and the final boss. (One surprise boss, but I'll not ruin that). Each boss takes the usual hits before dying and some of the bosses are repeated with slightly different level layouts to make up that thing called "Challenge".

Sometimes it all gets a bit much, or you just can't control the slippery little git.

The music is suitably chirpy enough with enough of catchy snatch of notes here and there that you might be listening to it for a while and be able to recall it quite clearly at times. Though the "danger" music does grate quickly as there's a definite lack of variation to stop the repetition from becoming beyond annoying.

But was there a point to all of this. Yes and no. As a game it stands upright on its hind legs and can walk and squeak with all the other games. As a Mario game it can't exactly be overly criticised as it's brought in a wealth of new characters, enemies and settings to the original that helps expanded the Mario-verse (You know, when he's not a Doctor, or Hotel manager, or Graffiti cleaner or EVER A PLUMBER! Let's see 'Mario puts his hand through shit in the U-Bend to fix a blocked toilet' as something indicative of his profession) and a case can be made in that the game itself has variation, there's a lot of ways to play it and beat it and the addition of multiple, different, characters does give that replayability factor a new breath of life.

She floats, it's handy at times, but usually you won't care enough to play her.

It's an odd one. I want to say I dislike it, but at the same time I also appreciate it. In truth, it's not bad, but it's not great and yet it still will feel at home amongst the games that it shoe-horned its way into with a bit of Miyamoto magic and a paint job on the sprites.