hotel-mario
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Super Mario's Wacky Worlds should have stayed buried
Well, here's an unexpected treat for your Labor Day: A peek at a Mario game you've probably never heard of and almost certainly will never touch, Super Mario's Wacky Worlds. If the video we found at Unseen64 is any indication, it's likely for the better. Created for the ill-fated Phillips CD-i by Novalogic, SMWW took Mario out of the Mushroom Kingdom (bold!) and plopped him in real-world locales like Egypt (puzzling!). Though touted as a successor to Super Mario World, it seems this would have been lucky to have been a successor to Hotel Mario.
Top 5: Worst. Cutscenes. Ever.
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/nintendo/Top_5_Worst_Cutscenes_Ever'; According to Activision (and after all, they made Pitfall!), video games will "eclipse" all other forms of media. Head honcho Mike Griffith went on to say that "Movies, recorded music and TV - these are all stagnating or contracting entertainment sectors." I'm not sure how much I agree with that statement. Strictly in terms of cash flow, it's already happening. Gaming is a fairly pricey hobby, and it's been outpacing the other forms of media for several years (in terms of growth). Yet I have a difficult time imagining a time where video games are everyone's preferred form of escapism. Although their respective industries may see drastic changes with direct, indirect, or unrelated connections to gaming, music and film will always have a place. As much as I love gaming, it's not rare that I find myself preferring to zone out with TV or just listen to music and read instead of playing a video game. What I do see is a further merging of the three into ubiquitous, all-purpose media devices. Microsoft and Sony currently do this, and it's only a matter of time before Nintendo catches up. While most households currently don't rely on gaming consoles as their sole provider of film / TV and music, I imagine that this will change. Perhaps the mediums will start to bleed into one another. With Metal Gear Solid blurring the lines between game and film and Audiosurf doing the same for games and music, perhaps media will merge and propagate a completely new and unique form of entertainment. Interesting stuff. What was this Top 5 about, again? Oh, right: cut scenes. A lot of them stink. Here's the 5 worst ones. NEXT >> #ninbutton { border-style: solid; border-color: #000; border-width: 2px; background-color: #BBB; color: #000; text-decoration: none; width: 100px; text-align: center; padding: 2px 2px 2px 2px; margin: 2px 2px 2px 2px; } .buttontext { color: #000; text-decoration: none; font: bold 14pt Helvetica; } #ninbutton:hover { text-decoration: none; color: #BBB; background-color: #000; } The Top 5 is a weekly feature that provides us with a forum to share our opinions on various aspects of the video game culture, and provides you with a forum to tell us how wrong we are. To further voice your opinions, submit a vote in the Wii Fanboy Poll, and take part in the daily discussions of Wii Warm Up.
Virtually Overlooked: Hotel Mario
Had it not been for the ill-advised deal between Nintendo and Philips, the CD-I system would just be a forgotten footnote, an expensive game system that ran decent versions of FMV games like Burn: Cycle* and Brain Dead 13, and also broke ground in the field of playing a tiny selection of low-resolution, expensive movies on CD. If, in 1995, you wanted to play Mad Dog McCree and then watch Top Gun, there was no better choice than the CD-I ... except maybe the 3D0. Thanks to Nintendo's contractually-obligated help, however, the CD-I will be remembered not as an also-ran in a race nobody cared about, but as the system that spawned Mario and Zelda games worse than anything committed to pink cartridge by Color Dreams.(*The best thing about Burn: Cycle was the box on the $2 PC copy I got a few years ago, which was covered in heat-sensitive material, so it changed colors like a mood ring. I think I gave the game away or something.)
