Getting back to the basics
If the fact that you’re back on campus holding the latest issue of the Utah Statesman wasn’t enough to tip you off, Christmas Break is over and we’re all back in school.
Bummer, huh?
Break was good though. I got to spend some quality time with the family and it was great to get away from the computer screen for a while and do what I really love: computer games, writing and working on my Web site.
This holiday was especially sweet for me because after many years I was finally able to catch up with an old friend of mine from my childhood. A friend that I had grown up with since I was 6 but over the last few years we’ve sadly drifted apart and gone our separate ways. During vacation I was able to rekindle our friendship though and I regret letting such petty things come between us.
My friend’s name is Mario.
Before Christmas I purchased a FC game console that lets you play all your old eight-bit Nintendo games without all that constant blowing and putting the game in and out several times to get it to work.
I originally bought it so that my roommate and I could take it apart and reassemble it to create our own stand up arcade machine, (don’t try that at home kids, we’re both evil science majors and more importantly we live in our own place) but we were soon distracted by a fact we had over looked when planning this whole thing.
The thing plays Nintendo games.
Quickly, every honorable and worthwhile intention we had for the holiday was shot to pieces by a bouncing fireball and then jumped on without a green mushroom in sight.
After making the machine, I planned to write a month’s worth of columns, master the flash animation program and clean my apartment. Instead, I discovered that I still remember where every secret coin in the first two levels of the original Mario Brothers is.
It has been the smartest purchase I have ever made.
The Original Mario Brothers is one of the many reasons I’m glad that I’m old enough to remember the ’80s but too young to be held responsible for anything that happened.
While one of the most fun games ever created, Mario Brothers doesn’t make any sense. At least it doesn’t anymore. It may have in 1988, but I must have forgotten how and why.
Let’s examine the plot of Mario, shall we:
You play a plumber who somehow gets transported to another world where the laws of physics that keep objects from changing direction in mid-air don’t apply.
Once there, Mario is expected to rescue a princess who will only end up getting kidnapped again soon. After facing an army of turtles, flying turtles, hammer throwing turtles and evil looking mushrooms with feet, he has to sneak through a huge, fire filled castle and face a giant evil pixilated dragon.
After knocking the dragon into the lava, Mario gets rewarded with nothing! Nothing, just a stupid good mushroom man telling you that the princess is in another castle. Apparently there is no military intelligence in the Mushroom Kingdom.
That’s another thing about Mario, the place is named the Mushroom Kingdom. It’s a kingdom full of mushrooms and that’s the best name they could think of?
That’s a naming committee meeting I wish I could have eavesdropped on. Clearly mushrooms were involved and I’m not talking about shitake.
Despite all these weaknesses, Mario still makes more sense than anything I’m ever had to read in English class and was a lot more enjoyable. It was also more fun than most modern games I’ve played, some of which had bigger budgets than popular movies.
I recommend everyone drop whatever it is you’re doing and find a place to play some old school Mario. You’ll be taken back to a part of you life where good triumphed over evil, cynicism hadn’t poisoned your soul and moving the controller up when Mario jumped made him go higher.
Go back to when life was good my friends.
Go there and geek on.
Steve Shinney’s column appears in the Statesman every Monday. Comments can be sent to him at steveshinney@cc.usu.edu