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| Everybody�s favourite overweight plumber from Brooklyn starred in his first N64 game back in 1996. Super Mario 64 was, and is a gaming classic. OTW investigates the Mario phenomenon� When Mario was first made up back in the early 1980�s he was called Jumpman, not surprisingly the name didn�t stick and he was re christened Mario after the landlord of Nintendo�s offices. Mario made his first appearance in the arcades along with Donkey Kong in the DK arcade game. The aim was to rescue Mario�s then girlfriend Pauline from the ape by jumping barrels, fire and climbing ladders to reach the top of the screen. Then Nintendo created Mario�s less portly brother, Luigi, and the Mario Brothers were the object of everyone�s affections both in arcades and at home on the new NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). The Mario Brothers became lunchboxes, pencil cases and yes�a very dodgy flop of a movie. Remember the movie?Some very bad acting had everyone reaching for sick bags and the lack of a decent plot made a gut wrenching, diabolical movie. In the crazy era that was the mid/early 1990�s Mario and Luigi found themselves in the latest craze that was Edutainment and some terrible games which wouldn�t look out of place in a torture room. Games like �Mario is Missing�, �Hotel Mario� and the amazingly terrifying �Mario teaches typing�. It seemed that the Mario licence was being sold off to the highest bidder, regardless of whether or not the games were quality or not. Infact it seemed that Nintendo were drunk on Mario�s popularity. Mario even ended up on the doomed to fail console the Philips CD-I which has now been long dead and buried. The Mario TV series was then thought up by some animators and paved the way for other Nintendo TV cartoons, namely the DK cartoon which is on Sky at the moment. Actually, I seem to remember the Mario cartoons being not all that bad, at times they were rather good although my memory of my years spent watching the likes of �Mario Brothers� and �Ninja Turtles� are rather rusty. But Mario returned and Nintendo put him in many a game including the original Mario Kart which, on the SNES, proved a classic. Other games on the likes of the Gameboy were hits including the Golden coins series and the Super Mario series were great games. On the Nintendo 64 Mario was turned into a 3D Spaghetti eating dude that all gamers everywhere instantly recognised. He then appeared in the second Mario Kart with other Nintendo classic characters such as Luigi, Peach, Toad and Wario. Mario then swapped his Kart for Parties, Tennis matches and Golf tournaments. The most recent Mario game is Paper Mario, which is kind of a retro game with 2D paper characters in 3D worlds (� la Yoshi�s Story). Paper Mario I must admit doesn�t sound as challenging as SM64 or MK64 but only time will tell. So there you have it-The history of Mario all on one page. So is Mario worthy of his high status? I�ll leave you to decide� (IF any of this info is faulty please Email me, you know the address) |
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