"Honestly... for nostalgia's sake"

How could I not review Super Mario Bros?

THIS was the game that made me a Video Game Player. Sure, I had Atari like everyone else. But The Mario Bros.. THE SUPER MARIO BROS. set the tone for the video games of the eight bit age. And it got me hooked. I could go on for hours and hours how, when I was just five years old, I played this game until my fingers bled.. and it was hard back then... until I finally beat Bowser, and nearly feinted to find there was another world.

Imagine my surprise when I found out there were EIGHT WORLDS IN ALL!!!

In light of the recent re-release of this game on Color Game-Boy, I had to go back and take a look at the original, in all its 8-bit glory. Ahh, the memories.

In case you have been locked in a closet for the last fifteen years, let me recap.

In the first real sidescroller platform game ever made, you take the role of Mario (or Luigi, if you're player 2) in the task of rescuing the princess of the mushroom princess. Yeah, nothing deep, though it's a little bizarre. You have to fight your way through 8 worlds of 32 levels to find the princess. The gameplay is basically run to the right, collect coins and power ups, and get rid of enemies, either by stomping on them or shooting a fireball at them or something. Sure, it doesn't sound thrilling when you put it that way, but someone was on to something when they made this game, and it is easily the most imitated game in video game history. The game might not even seem like much now -- the gameplay is rather unforgiving, though pretty accurate, and the difficulty isn't even applicable after you figure out where those warps are -- but this is the first venture into a world of wonder, the first step into video games as we know it. Without this, there would be no Sonic or Crash, there would be no Banjo or Lara. Mario is the man.

And if you haven't played this game, play it. Period.

At least buy the GBC version!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 11/01/99