supermarioworld
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20 SNES games are coming to Nintendo Switch tomorrow
Nintendo Switch Online members have been able to play NES games on Switch for several months, and you won't have to wait much longer until you can finally play SNES games on the console. A whole bunch of them will drop September 5th, and they're included with a Switch Online subscription.
Yes, Mario was punching Yoshi in the head
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Is pineapple on pizza right or wrong? Was Mario punching Yoshi in the head or pointing in the direction he wanted to go? These are the questions that destroy friendships and melt internet forums, but finally, we have an answer for the latter. Mario was straight-up smacking Yoshi in the face -- Nintendo's developers say so.
ICYMI: Improving pesticide's sticking abilities
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: MIT researchers created a kind of pesticide that is much more likely to stick on plant leaves because its additives are made of negatively and positively charged polymers that bond together. This means far less pesticide needs to be used for the same effect, and fewer pollutants are likely to get into the water system. If you're interested in watching the full dominoes video (and why wouldn't you be, that stuff is mesmerizing) you can find it here. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Spin-jump your way to 'Flappy Bird' in 'Super Mario World'
To date, we've seen the infamous Flappy Bird show up either cloned or otherwise in roughly 853 different places. That's a slight exaggeration, but you probably weren't expecting to find it in a game that's rapidly approaching 30 years in age. YouTube user "SethBling" says that by executing a glitch on a standard Super NES with no modifications, he was able to trick the game into letting him upload code for the airborne fowl's namesake game into Super Mario World. Your homage in Super Mario Maker just got even less impressive.
Super Mario World's gravity isn't possible on any planet
It goes without saying that Super Mario World is unrealistic, but have you wondered just how outlandish it is? PBS has. The broadcaster's Space Time show recently went out of its way to calculate the gravity of the game's planet based on Mario's jumps, and it turns out to be nearly eight times that of Earth. That's a figure that you don't even find on gas giants like Jupiter, and it's only feasible on stars. Moreover, Nintendo's plumber would need both superhuman strength to jump as high as he does as well as non-human blood -- the liquid would be so heavy that a heart couldn't pump it properly. Mario doesn't so much have his own world as his own universe, since there's no way that he or his environment could exist based on our understanding of physics.
Super Mario AI learns how to play by listening to your advice
As fun as Super Mario Bros. games are to play, wouldn't it be nice if you could coach from the sidelines every now and then? The University of Tubingen has developed an artificial intelligence that lets you do just that. Its Mario AI project makes Nintendo's plumber both aware of his environment and responsive to your advice on how he should behave. You can teach him that stomping on Goombas will definitely take them down, for instance. Mario even has his own systems for feelings and needs. He'll explore the world if he's sufficiently curious, and he'll chase after coins if he's "hungry."
SupaBoy portable SNES, the most fun you can have without a soldering iron
We previewed Hyperkin's SupaBoy back in the summer and loved the idea of toting 'round original SNES games without resorting to Ben Heck-style crafting. The handheld takes full-size cartridges, packs a 3.5-inch screen and a battery that's disappointingly rated for just two point five hours (best keep a power cable handy). It'll also double as a home console: there's an AV-out port and slots for two classic controllers for when you wanna kick it old-school. It's reportedly compatible with titles like Mario World, A Link to the Past and Starwing Starfox, but who needs them when we've got a mint condition copy of Tetris Attack at home? It'll cost you $80 and is available from Amazon as of yesterday -- we suggest you get to practicing blowing the dirt from the connectors, since you'll be doing a lot of it soon.
The eleven-minute Automatic Mario masterpiece
It's been months since the e-fad of creating automated levels in Super Mario World to the tune of popular Anime soundtracks surfaced -- normally, that's much longer than the lifespan of most internet memes. However, this post-mortem contribution to the Mario-on-rails movement caught our attention (as well as the collective attention of Digg-dwellers) largely due to the fact that "months" is the amount of time the architect of the above masterwork needed to really hone his craft.The above eleven-minute long video, set to a remixed hodge-podge of Anime songs (feel free to flaunt your knowledge of Anime theme music in the comments), is absolutely incredible. Not only do Mario's predetermined movements match up perfectly to the music, the sound effects are often pitch perfect to the background track. It's difficult to explain -- we suggest you watch it to fully comprehend, then spend the rest of the day wondering if all those Journey covers you made on Mario Paint are still as breathtaking as you once thought.
Super Musical World
These self-playing Super Mario World levels may not be as intricate or as precarious as the original Detteiu Mario videos we presented you, but they have an added dimension that further subverts the normal Super Mario World experience: musicality. The levels are designed such that noisemaking events-- jumps, 1ups, shell kicks-- are triggered in time with the accompanying (shrill) anime theme music. In this way, Super Mario World becomes a musical instrument itself; an extremely difficult-to-program sequencerThe best implementation of the technique, we believe, can be found in the first half of the video above, as Mario bumps and bounces in time to "Hare Hare Yukai" from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. We've embedded the original video for you after the break, so you can form your own hypotheses as to why all animation has not been replaced by custom Super Mario World levels. Check the link for some more anime/Mario mashups!
In hacked Super Mario World, level plays you
These fan-created Super Mario World levels are Rube Goldberg machines made from Mario mechanics. With a few exceptions (involving holding the down button or holding onto a shell in a few cases), every level plays itself out, propelling Mario safely through with a baroque arrangement of bumpers, platforms, and enemies. We were a little overcome by the beauty of such elegant design-- we're being absolutely serious about that.Whenever we see brilliant hacks like these, we wish that Nintendo would embrace user content as possible Virtual Console extras. In this case, we also think that Nintendo should hire the person or people responsible for these hacks, because they have an understanding of Mario physics and level design that far outstrips anyone who has worked on any of the games.
Today's most impressively boring video: Automatic Mario
Since the interwebs are still abuzz about the new Grand Theft Auto 4 trailer, we'll have to settle for showing off Automatic Mario, where our famous plumber finishes an entire custom-made Super Mario World map by just standing still. It's an impressive feat, with hazards all around, but Mario's pace is slower than a narcoleptic Goomba. Best to watch on fast-forward. Video embedded after the break.
VC Friday: It's shopping time
Maybe you've been holding out on this whole Virtual Console thing. Maybe you just didn't feel like spending money on some older games. But this week comes complete with a huge shot of pure, unadulterated goodness, so maybe it's time you gave the Wii Shop channel a chance. We're not saying you have to ... we're just saying it may make your weekend that much better.This week: Super Mario World (SNES) -- 800 Wii points Vigilante (TurboGrafx) -- 600 Wii points Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES) -- 500 Wii points
