Mario brothers

[Brian]

I have never understood the appeal of this and other similar games.
Did anyone dig this as a lad? What made you invest time in it?

[Indy Coug]

Princess was smokin'

[dabrockster]

I have never understood the appeal of this and other similar games.
Did anyone dig this as a lad? What made you invest time in it?

I once tried Zelda and after spending 30 minutes trying to figure out where to go I quit and went back to Mario Bros....

[RobinFinderson]

By 'this and similar games' do you mean platformers?

Platformers can be fun, and the Mario franchise has developed some of the best platformers ever. The recent Mario Galaxy game was very fun. The Mario franchise has thrived on fun and innovation. What is not to like?

[Brian]

By 'this and similar games' do you mean platformers?

Platformers can be fun, and the Mario franchise has developed some of the best platformers ever. The recent Mario Galaxy game was very fun. The Mario franchise has thrived on fun and innovation. What is not to like?

I'm not sure what 'platformers' means, but i mean games where you run across the screen jumping over things, or jumping/flying into things.

i like a 'doing something realistic' game, sports game, flying an airplane, shooting stuff, civilization, etc.

there must be some appeal to them because they are so popular, but I've never understood why.
To me, they just seem very repetitive, and all that happens is that you get to see a slightly different 2D world with more barrels rolling towards you.
What am I missing?

[TripletDaddy]

The original appeal of Donkey Kong was that there video games were a novelty back then, as opposed to the modern day proliferation that we see now.

Games like Space Invaders, Pac Man, centipede.....those are horribly boring now, but the appeal back then was the newness and excitement. It was a cultural thing.....part of youth culture and mall culture that permeated 80s suburbia. These were fun games because there was nothing comparable out there.

Also, the allure of finding out how the game ends has always been a key driver. I remember when Mario 2 came out....when was it....early 90s? It was a huge deal to say you finished the ending. The end of Super Mario Bros was so anti-climactic that the designers put together that dream sequence and then scrolling credits for the end of Mario 2 (this was one of the first examples of such a theatrical wrap to a video game).

I enjoy these old classics for nostalgia's sake (I don't care much about all the present day iterations of Mario) but my favorite genre has always been the RPG. I remember playing rpgs on the old Apple //, games like The Serpent's Star, The Mask of the Sun, Secret Agent, the Zork series, etc. Today's RPGs have the same appeal to me....from The Elder Scrolls and BioShock to Fallout 3 (btw, Fallout Vegas coming out this year....woohoo!).

My least favorite genre is the sim....it is interesting that you want to do something "realistic." I can't think of anything more tedious. Those games where you spend all this time and money planting corn, building roads, building churches, etc. Huge yawn for me. Also, flight sims....also very boring. And the modern virtual reality games actually give me the heebs....people spending money to buy virtual clothes and virtual cars, etc for their virtual selves. I think those games are breeding grounds for serial killers and computer hackers.

[Brian]

The original appeal of Donkey Kong was that there video games were a novelty back then, as opposed to the modern day proliferation that we see now.

Games like Space Invaders, Pac Man, centipede.....those are horribly boring now, but the appeal back then was the newness and excitement. It was a cultural thing.....part of youth culture and mall culture that permeated 80s suburbia. These were fun games because there was nothing comparable out there.

Also, the allure of finding out how the game ends has always been a key driver. I remember when Mario 2 came out....when was it....early 90s? It was a huge deal to say you finished the ending. The end of Super Mario Bros was so anti-climactic that the designers put together that dream sequence and then scrolling credits for the end of Mario 2 (this was one of the first examples of such a theatrical wrap to a video game).

I enjoy these old classics for nostalgia's sake (I don't care much about all the present day iterations of Mario) but my favorite genre has always been the RPG. I remember playing rpgs on the old Apple //, games like The Serpent's Star, The Mask of the Sun, Secret Agent, the Zork series, etc. Today's RPGs have the same appeal to me....from The Elder Scrolls and BioShock to Fallout 3 (btw, Fallout Vegas coming out this year....woohoo!).

My least favorite genre is the sim....it is interesting that you want to do something "realistic." I can't think of anything more tedious. Those games where you spend all this time and money planting corn, building roads, building churches, etc. Huge yawn for me. Also, flight sims....also very boring. And the modern virtual reality games actually give me the heebs....people spending money to buy virtual clothes and virtual cars, etc for their virtual selves. I think those games are breeding grounds for serial killers and computer hackers.

Even with the novelty of pacman/donkey kong/etc in the 80's, I never spent more than a few quarters on them. They were just boring. My quarters were shoveled into battlezone, the tri-plane game (can't remember what it's called) and missile command.
Last time I went to Dave and Busters, I spent my whole game card on "Silent Scope". Nothing like play Lee Harvey Oswald with a high powered rifle.

So was it bragging rights that made them so appealing?

I have never played a sim game, they do seem equally boring to me. I don't see a point to creating some virtual place that has no apparent purpose other than impressing other people in the game. But maybe that's the point of mario?

[Indy Coug]

I think part of the appeal of Mario compared to a lot of other games of its time was the fact that you would actually win the game.

[TripletDaddy]

I don't think people played Mario for bragging rights....I just remember that it was a huge deal to finally finish Mario 2 and see the ending.

I totally remember battlezone. You put your face into that periscope-type deal and moved it around on its axis. very cool. not sure how the repetition of blowing things up in Battlezone is much different than any of the other repetitive tasks in other games, but I think they are both fun.

I never liked space invaders.

As parents of children that now play video games, another appeal that I can definitely see with the mario franchise....it is safe for the kids....no blood and guts, no foul language, etc.

[Commando]

To me, the excitement of Mario Bros was in the arcade incarnation. It was colorful and exciting and awesome. Then Super Mario Bros came out and blew everything out of the water. Then Nintendo made it available at home very similar to the arcade version-- that was just wild, since the nearest thing to arcade style home gaming before that was Colecovision.


Mario was fun to play among friends because it was so cutting edge and exciting. Then the challenge of the game took over and you were hooked.

[FN Phat]

The first time that I played Mario Bros I was at my sister's friend's house. The shoved me into her room while they were getting ready to go party (my sister was killing 2 birds with one stone, as she had to babysit me until my parents came home from work). I didn't have a Nintendo yet and was amazed at how you could control the characters on the screen. What was even better was when my sister's friend came into the room, with just a thong on, to get clothes out of her closet. I will never forget that glorious moment and will forever be in debt to Mr. Mario and his fat brother in green.

[TripletDaddy]

The first time that I played Mario Bros I was at my sister's friend's house. The shoved me into her room while they were getting ready to go party (my sister was killing 2 birds with one stone, as she had to babysit me until my parents came home from work). I didn't have a Nintendo yet and was amazed at how you could control the characters on the screen. What was even better was when my sister's friend came into the room, with just a thong on, to get clothes out of her closet. I will never forget that glorious moment and will forever be in debt to Mr. Mario and his fat brother in green.

luigi is tall and thin.

[marsupial]

I have never understood the appeal of this and other similar games.
Did anyone dig this as a lad? What made you invest time in it?

As a wee lass I did. Now I hate it as it's all I can do to tear my 8-year-old away from the new Wii Super Mario bros.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

I played Super Mario Bros like crazy when I got a Nintendo, I wasn't great at it (could never do the turtle trick) but there was something I loved about it. HFN Jr. recently saved up money to buy himself a DS game and settled on the new Super Mario Bros for DS. We were playing it on the plane last week and I was just as into it as ever. Also it was a great ego boost to be better than someone at the game, seriously the kid isn't good at Mario.

[Moliere]

I think those games are breeding grounds for serial killers and computer hackers.

Last time I went to Dave and Busters, I spent my whole game card on "Silent Scope". Nothing like play Lee Harvey Oswald with a high powered rifle.