the resigned gamer, everything I hate about the thing I love the most

Meditation on Games Past: Super Mario Bros

Posted by Sir Cucumber at 9:51 PM on Sunday, October 28, 2007

Meditation on Games Past, Mario, The Resigned GamerI was connecting my 9-year old little brother’s Wii to the wireless network when it occurred to me he’d never played, nor even heard of, Super Mario Bros. His idea of classic gaming is Ratchet and Clank. So I dropped $5 on a download, turned the remote around in his hands, and stepped back.

He walked straight into the goomba on his first life but then realized he could jump over them, and soon found with glee that falling on one killed it. Being the type that picks up every last bolt in Ratchet despite my groaning protestations, he turned to take out the goombas he’d leapfrogged past.

“Why can’t I go back?” he asked.

“Because you can’t.”

“But why?”

“Dude, you just can’t.”

Further investigating the leftward wall, he kicked a koopa shell behind him. It came back.

I winced as he walked past the 1up mushroom between the hill and the pit, and felt a great sense of pride when he discovered how to run across one-block wide holes. I was tempted to show him the 1-2 warp zone, but I’m sure he’ll find it soon.

It’s not every day you get to look through eyes seeing Super Mario Bros for the first time. I highly recommend it.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for making me feel old!

Sir Cucumber said...

a comment? a real, honest to god, anonymous, not acquainted or related to me (I'm not acquainted or related to you, am I?) comment?

Sweet!

Unknown said...

I like this anonymous guy.

Anonymous said...

I feel incumbent to leave another comment. I too will be anonymous, but not the same anonymous guy. I'm the _new_ anonymous.

Sir Cucumber said...

my goodness! we've become internet superstars! All we have to do now is turn on google adsense and we'll be milllllionairrres!

Anonymous said...

What you need to do is have your little brother play all sorts of retro games, and gauge his responses on each. Maybe you should get some Turbografx games...

Yeah, I'm the new, new anon guy. By the way, you are on reddit.com.

Sir Cucumber said...

anonymous commenter party! this is friggin sweet! Good idea man- any suggestions for a TG 16 game I could download on his Wii?

I downloaded Balloon Fight for him, thinking it might provoke some kind of humorous reaction, but he was just pretty much like "you can't do that with balloons." He loved that big ol' nasty fish though!