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Wii impressions: Virtual Console
The classic controller is a good fit, albeit unfamiliar, for a gamepad that supports NES, SNES, N64, Sega Genesis, and TurboGrafx 16. Part of the sacrifice though, is that the classic controller can't offer an authentic retro experience and, of course, leaves us wondering, why bother? It's no secret that all of these platforms and their games are readily available in emulated formats for computers and other devices. And it's easy enough to invest in a gamepad that's as generic as Nintendo's classic controller. For Virtual Console to succeed, it's got to be clean, easy, and cheap. That said, the E3 Virtual Console demo featured an elegant interface (the downloading process was not shown) and superb emulation software. The demo featured a sampling of beloved launch titles, including Super Mario Bros. (NES), Super Mario World (SNES), Super Mario 64 (N64), Sonic the Hedgehog (Genesis), and Bonk's Adventure (TurboGrafx 16).
My talent? Dressing up as Mario!
We're not entirely sure that dressing up as Mario and reenacting the entire first level (World 1-1) of NES classic (and frat boy retro-favorite) Super Mario Bros. constitutes a "talent" in the traditional sense. Perhaps the singular artistic vision of one of these Gordon College students makes up the talent portion. Either that or the part where Mario pulls off his red overalls--male-stripper style--to reveal his white flower-power overalls underneath is the real talent. Check out the embedded video after the break.[Thanks, Gareth]
Ohio town spits fire over Mario question cube "attack"
Though you may be in a heap of trouble with your home town rag and residents, oh five teenage girls from Portage County, Ohio, we salute you and your April Fool's prank: dropping or suspending seventeen Mario Bros. question cubes around town. Now, granted, if we saw something like that on April first in our fair city of New York, it might seem a lot more commonplace than Ravenna, Ohio, but the point still stands -- if you think Al Qaeda ever played SMB, you've probably forgotten that those games inspire the good in people, remember? The controller smashing huffy puffy video game addicted 11 year old good in people, in fact. Unfortunately that didn't stop the HAZMAT and Fire Department crews from stepping in to defuse the situation, so to speak, and for it the five girls could face serious criminal charges. Too bad, because if those guys would have just jumped up and hit them from beneath they might instead have walked away with a sweet power-up (or an extra man).[Via Joystiq]
Jamming on the Super Mario soundboard
Get your groove on, Electroplankton's BeatNES style, with this Flash-based Super Mario Bros. soundboard, appropriately dubbed "The Super Mario Bros. Audiosound Super-Synthesizer." It's simple: "pick music from the column on the left" and "play sound effects from the window on the right" to make your own Mario masterpiece. Even better, try playing through World 1-1 in your head, timing the sound effects from memory just so.[Via digg][Update: The soundboard is originally from the always superlative 4cr. Thanks, guys!]
Sights and sounds of retro Famicom keychains
For the price of $13.50 you can get a keychain featuring cool, retro blocky graphic coupled with a miniature Famicom controller that makes character-relevant sound effects, like this especially obnoxious one from Ice Climber (wav).I couldn't imagine having one of these in my pocket, repeating that sound effect ad nauseum every time something hit the "A" button; the pixelated portion is aces though.[Via GameBrink]
