Mario's Time Machine

"Buy this if you want an excuse to hate history for all eternity."

INTRODUCTION
Okay, I'll admit it, I actually bought this ''game''. It was way back in '94, when I was a 7-year-old at the height of my ''Mario is God'' phase. I had bought this game without even looking at the back of the box, and when I actually started this game I was in for a rude awakening. This is an edutainment game, sticking in Mario just so more people will by it (and, I'm sorry to say, it worked on me). Was it really that bad? Yes. Read on for why.

STORY (6/10)
Bowser has somehow constructed a time machine, and has gone back in time to steal certain artifacts crucial to the advance of civilization (such as the Declaration of Independence and the first-ever printing block), putting them up for display in his museum, in an evil plan to send us all back into pre-civilization. Mario must now steal the artifacts from Bowser's museum and give them back to their original owners. Pretty cheesy, but at least you're not saving the princess anymore.

GAMEPLAY (2/10)
Extremely boring. Each item has two corresponding history pages that is somehow filled with blanks. After getting the item you want to return (you just go up to the item and push X... shouldn't they be a bit more well-guarded?), you must figure out where and when the owner is (again, this is too easy, you just need to consult the history pages for that item ). Then you must go to that time and place, and gain information from the people of that time period to fill in the blanks of the history pages. After filling all the blanks in, you'll be able to give the item back to the owner, and you'll have to go back to Bowser's museum and repeat the entire sequence again.

Sounds boring? It is. And there are even more problems. First of all, the people in the game who you're supposed to talk to in order to gain information don't repeat what they say--if you weren't paying attention to a piece of important information, then you can forget about hearing it. Second, the questions themselves aren't very well thought-out. Examples of the questions include: ''Beethoven gave his first _______ concert at the age of eight,'' and ''Jefferson was a scientist, architect, _______, and statesman.'' I don't see how knowing what to fill in those blanks has anything to do with being good at history--but perhaps it's because my knowledge of history is none too great.

There is, however, a high point. Time surfing, in which you surf across the sea, collect 10 mushrooms, and dive into a whirlpool to end up in another time period, is actually pretty fun and adds some much-needed action to this game. However, that's such an insignificant part of the game that it doesn't help the score much.

CONTROL (7/10)
They're good, but it's mainly due to the complete lack of things to do .

GRAPHICS (5.5/10)
I guess they're decent... Mario's sprite is the exact same one as the one in Super Mario World, and the backgrounds are mostly colorful and nice-looking. The problem is the font that the history pages use. It's extremely small and angular, making reading difficult, especially for younger gamers that this game is mainly aimed for. If you play this game for too long , you'll have a severe case of eye strain.

SOUND AND MUSIC (7.5/10)
This is probably the high point of the game. There are some nice tunes that blend with the background quite well, although they get quite repetitive and none are that memorable.

REPLAYABILITY (1/10)
Even if you played the game fully through (unlikely), I doubt you'll want to play through it again. In fact, if you actually played through the game and saw the ending like me, you probably need to buy some more games, as I did when I beat the game.

CONCLUSION
Some Mario spin-off games are great, such as the Mario Kart series and Mario RPG. This, however, was just a pathetic attempt to sell a pathetic game with the Mario name. In fact, if you ever see this game on sale, do the world a service and advise whoever's selling it to give up and crush it with a sledgehammer.

FINAL SCORE: 3/10

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 08/06/01, Updated 08/06/01