Missing Mario

• Tuesday April 11, 2006 in: Video Game Consoles Tag(s):

  Before you alpha males dismiss this post as nothing more than the sentimental musings of a guy who deeply relates with the two central characters of Brokeback Mountain, think again. The guy this writer misses in the title is about an inch or two tall, wears overalls, slides down mazes of plumbing and fights off a really weird-looking bunch of bad guys. That's right, the Mario I'm missing is the hero of Super Mario Bros., the very first video game I've ever played in my life.

  I never realized how much I missed the guy until one weekend, which was turning out to be a really bad one for me. I had to take it out on someone, and that unfortunate someone happened to be major Tekken character Heihachi.

  As I was kicking the crap out of the bald guy's butt on my trusty Playstation, a very familiar tune suddenly rang out over my game's rather loud soundtrack. Turning around, I saw my nephew watching an online video of some guy playing the Super Mario Bros. theme on a 9-string bass guitar. Before I knew it, I was grinning from ear to ear, all my worries drifting away, albeit for just a few minutes, as the music brought me down memory lane.

  Awesome. Just awesome. And the guitar player was okay, too.

  In today's world of extremely graphics-intensive video games, just hearing the theme to one of the world's greatest video games of all time seems like a breath of fresh air. And it brings on a flood of memories too.

  I could still remember the painful blisters in my hands as I missed countless breakfasts and lunches just to get to World 2. Then there's the frustration of not being able to rescue the princess because, to be honest, I did not get any good at it. But there's no denying the fact that the game, in all its simplicity, has entertained millions of gamers and paved the way for a new generation of video games. As a matter of fact, the game is listed by Guiness World Records as the world's best-selling video game.

  The game spawned numerous spin-offs and versions, including Super Mario All Stars and Super Mario 64, where Mario first appears in 3-D. There was even a Super Mario film that starred Bob Hoskins. That one sucked, though.

  Today, countless video games are in the market, and they're getting as realistic as modern technological advances allow. Still, it would be nice to keep old video games like Super Mario around just for nostalgic purposes. Just hearing the first few notes of the Super Mario Bros. theme made an otherwise bad day a lot more bearable, and I believe it will have that same effect on you guys who were ushered into the gaming world by two virtual siblings in overalls breaking bricks, jumping really high and rescuing princesses.