Super Mario Bros. Crossover 2.0 is out! An expansion on the original game, which let you play as various NES characters transplanted into Super Mario Bros., but using the rules and abilities of those characters from their original games, version 2 offers more special abilities, more characters, and your choice of audiovisual "skins" based on four Mario games from the NES, SNES, and Gameboy, along with one based on
Demon Returns. There's even
instructions for playing with a gamepad!
For more information, see the
Super Mario Bros. Crossover Wiki or watch the exciting
Super Mario Bros. Crossover trailer! [
Previously]
posted by Pope Guilty
on Feb 12, 2012 -
15 comments
Here is a video playthrough of The Legend of Zelda without a sword. It is possible to get right up to the last boss without one, although it requires knowing a
lot of tricks. That is exactly what mev1978 does in his playthrough, without dying. And then he does it again in the second quest.
First quest (1:61:31) -
Second quest (1:13:18)
[more inside]
posted by JHarris
on Dec 26, 2011 -
33 comments
In the mid-1990s, a man named George Wood created a TV show called
Flights of Fantasy on a Maryland public-access channel. The show was was dedicated to videogames, and gained quite a few detractors; Wood was not known for his playing skills, research, or good taste, and the production was rather cheap. He would also tend to go off-topic, sometimes markedly so.
It had a small following, being a local public-access show, but would have been lost forever had Wood not joined a video gaming association called NAViGaTR, who archived the entire series, edited each episode, and put them online as
Gaming in the Clinton Years.
posted by Anatoly Pisarenko
on Mar 21, 2011 -
12 comments
BS Zelda Retrospective (SLYT). In honor of Zelda's 25th anniversary this month, this is an interesting look at the live-broadcast
Satellaview games in the Zelda series, which had some compelling and strange tweaks to the Zelda formula. The beginning is an introduction to the service, and the fun bit begins at
8:50.
posted by BlackLeotardFront
on Feb 23, 2011 -
13 comments
Trash cans, landfills, and incinerators. Erasure, deletion, and obsolescence. These words could describe what has happened to the various building blocks of the video game industry in countries around the world. These building blocks consist of video game source code, the actual computer hardware used to create a particular video game, level layout diagrams, character designs, production documents, marketing material, and more.
These are just some elements of game creation that are gone -- never to be seen again. These elements make up the home console, handheld, PC and arcade games we've played. The only remnant of a particular game may be its name, or its final published version, since the possibility exists that no other physical copy of its creation remains.
As a community of video game developers, publishers, and players, we must begin asking ourselves some difficult but inevitable questions. Some believe there is no point in preserving a video game, arguing that games are short-term entertainment, while others disagree with this statement entirely, believing the industry is in a preservation crisis.
Where Games Go To Sleep: The Game Preservation Crisis [more inside]
posted by timshel
on Feb 9, 2011 -
44 comments
There are generally two approaches to thinking about games: narratology and ludology. The first emphasizes story, the second play. The next time I played Super Mario, on the Wii (you can order all the vintage games), I found myself in a narratological mode. Mario reminded me of K. and his pursuit of the barmaid Frieda, in Kafka’s “The Castle,” and of the kind of lost-loved-one dreams that “The Castle” both mimics and instigates.
The New Yorker profiles the father of modern video games, Shigeru Miyamoto. (
via Kotaku)
posted by incomple
on Dec 13, 2010 -
37 comments
Chrontendo is a video podcast in which a guy systematically described and discusses
every Famicom/NES game released. Currently up to 33 episodes and counting, and covering hundreds of games.
[more inside]
posted by JHarris
on Nov 1, 2010 -
23 comments
(NSFW)
The Angry Video Game Nerd (taking a cue from seanbaby's
lead) has been producing video reviews of some of the most notoriously awful NES games, from
Top Gun to
Bible Games. (Can't miss:
The Power Glove.) Not content to go after one system, he's upgraded his range to take on other colossal failures like the
Atari Jaguar,
Superman 64, and
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (the movie). His newest series of videos,
You Know What's Bullshit?, takes on everyday nuances like
DVD box sets. He may be vulgar and his vignettes silly, but damn straight he's got a
point. Enjoy all his archived videos
here, spanning five years of obscenity-laced love/hate for his greatest passions.
posted by Christ, what an asshole
on Jun 23, 2009 -
18 comments
Pants get in the way of disaster.
Playing alone because then it ends when I say it ends.
No one is there to pick you up.
Don't be delicate; fuck me harder.
Adam Mathes on video games "I want them to love me as much as I love them and they can't, so I have to fill in the blanks myself."
Nestography [more inside]
posted by Sailormom
on Mar 3, 2008 -
7 comments
Remember
Super Mario Frustration? Kaizo Mario World is another of those super-hard Mario level hacks, this one of Super Mario World. Someone played through its first level 134 times, with save states, recording all his deaths, then digitally composited them into one trip through the level. The result was
Many-Worlds Mario. (For those interested, here's a
video of a tool-assisted perfect run of much of the game.
Here's the rest. Here's some more.)
posted by JHarris
on Feb 3, 2008 -
36 comments
If you're lucky enough to own the Nintendo Wii and are of the left brain
variety, have a look at
MiiStation.com, where you can submit a photo and have an artist create your Mii - you know, Mr. Potato Head for the console generation. This is real people (in Japan!) sittin' in front of the tube (probably LCDs or plasmas, maybe even OLEDs?), lookin' at your photos and wavin' that Wii wand.
posted by gen
on Feb 6, 2007 -
7 comments
Combining incredible hubris with deep incompetence,
Active Enterprises was probably the worst game company of all time. They released precisely two games in the early 1990s. The first was the insanely horrible
Action 52, (retail price: $200), which was designed to
take advantage of a "silent wave of anti, far-eastern [sic] made products," and featured an
unwinnable contest. More amazing, however, was the sequel to the 52nd game in their Action 52 cartridge,
Cheetahmen II. Never quite the breakout hit that Active intended, perhaps because it was crippled with
bizarre bugs and
middle school art, the world never got to see the second issue of the
Cheetahmen comic book, nor the planned set of
action figures, nor their
Action Gamemaster console.
posted by blahblahblah
on Jan 19, 2007 -
26 comments
Blaster Master ...
Solid NES Gold. Those who remember
the game do so
with fondness. Though
critically lauded on release, and later
spawning several sequels, the game was never as big a hit as its its spiritual predecessors, Metroid and Legend of Zelda. Like
Super Mario Bros. 2/Doki Doki Panic, Blaster Master was based on an obscure Japanese game, in this case
Chōwakuseisenki Metafight although the differences in this case are limited to the story. Blaster Master was also the first (and only "canon") book in the Nintendo
Worlds of Power series, in which various authors
novelized third-party games using the pseudonym "F.X. Nine."
Download the Blaster Master book here (MSWord zipped, "enhanced" by a fan). Lastly, some bonus links:
one,
two, and
three (!)
posted by BlackLeotardFront
on Oct 24, 2006 -
36 comments
SMW - The complete soundtrack to Super Mario World, covered by one man using dozens of instruments. Roughly in game order, faithful to the originals, with some bizarre artistic license thrown around. A private hobby made public. Dedicated to Koji Kondo.
posted by Pretty_Generic
on Aug 13, 2005 -
20 comments
Mario in the News A Japanese person (cannot translate the name, sorry) has completed the classic NES game Super Mario Bros. 3 in just over 11 minutes. Fortunately he recorded it for posterity. (uses Windows streaming video.)
Speed runs have been gaining in
popularity lately. What game would you like to see abused in such as fashion?
posted by patgas
on Dec 2, 2003 -
18 comments
The Sunday Funday Blues: This is supposed to be on of the worst Nintendo games ever. Heh. No wonder. Yet it seems appropriate. As does Storman' Norman's
Sunday Blues radio programme. What
is it about Sundays anyway? And what's the best way to survive them? What are the local traditions? Here in Portugal, it's the Sunday papers; not going to Church; feeling guilty; drinking too many Bloody Marys; late, enormous lunches; lazy love-making, listening to football on the radio and naps...
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Feb 24, 2002 -
27 comments
With the gamecube, xbox and ps2 all on the market (although ps2 has been around awhile), it seems to be gaming heaven. I've always been a nintendo man, what do you guys/gals think? Can you rate your top five consoles of all time (based purely on joy it brought to you)?
posted by dig_duggler
on Nov 17, 2001 -
53 comments
As one whose gaming never advanced beyond PONG, I know
this must mean something. What that something is, I'm not sure.
posted by red cell
on Dec 27, 2000 -
3 comments
Every once in a while I get a bad case of 8-bit nostalgia, and I remember fondly my many hours of joy with my Nintendo Entertainment System. One of the most fun games on the NES had to be Tetris, and this
history of the game is a neat read.
TSR's NES Archive is another cool site dealing with the NES. Of course, the original Legend of Zelda is the best game of all time, but that's another thread entirely.
posted by tdecius
on Sep 20, 1999 -
0 comments
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