super mario
Latest
A very special Mega64 event
Those lovable scamps from Mega64 are at it again! There's never a dull moment when these friends go on a wild, madcap adventure that you'll never forget. Join them, as they discover... the true meaning of friendship.... what? Oh, we were thinking about a different movie. This one's just, you know, some dudes jumping around in Mario Bros. suits and stuff. But it's the patented brand of Mega64 funny-- video game characters accosting random (and not so random) people on the street-- that makes their work worth our few seconds of download time.Please, click on the limited-edition post break, and watch the movie that your whole family is sure to love!
Today's most modified game video: Super Doom Mario
In a way it's sad to see these little Mario villains get blasted away Doom-style ... but on the other hand, it is also extremely satisfying. TheLastBoss featured this video and offered up their own take, "This honestly looks more fun than a lot of Doom 3, I'd pay for it." While we doubt you'll ever see it officially on the Virtual Console, you know someone is going to hack this onto there and we'll see people playing it with the Wii-mote. Just wait.
Super Paper Mario releases April 9
Portly paper plumber platforming news now, with Nintendo announcing a release date of April 9 for Super Paper Mario. Initially developed as a Gamecube title, the Wii adventure sees Mario switching between charming 2-D and 3-D landscapes in an effort to thwart the ill-advised marriage of Princess Peach to Bowser. Who knew a mere platformer could provide such sweeping social commentary on the liberal, inter-species marriage laws of the Mushroom Kingdom?The platformer also underlines the state of the ongoing Wii games drought. Short of Sonic's Wii debut later this month and Wario's notable appearance early this year, the console's Q1 release schedule has been decidedly barren. Ideally, Super Paper Mario will kick off a more vigorous second quarter, complete with the evolved form of an overlooked Gamecube ape. %Gallery-1586%
Virtual Console vigilantes gain ground in Super Mario World
If you're the sort of person who leaps out of bed on a Monday morning, filled with the burning desire to rescue something from a perilous situation, you'll likely find today's Virtual Console offerings most satisfying. As of 9AM Pacific Time, you should be able to make your way into the Wii shop and start proving that chivalry is far from dead (but possibly overpriced in some cases).Princess Toadstool will be requiring your services in Super Mario Land State Continent World (SNES, $8), having been kidnapped during her trip to Dinosaur Land -- it sounded so inviting! If you haven't played it before, it's well worth witnessing Mario's career shift to Dino-Rider and his expertise in straddling a vicious green beast that devours enemies whole. If that doesn't hold appeal, a different career of sorts lies in Vigilante (Turbo-Grafx 16, $6), which sees players beating up thugs in New York City in an effort to rescue "the beloved Madonna." Finally, there's Gain Ground (Genesis, $8), a dramatic tale of supercomputers gone rampant and civilians being unjustly imprisoned within war simulations (obviously). It's just as well that you have an AK-toting guy called "Professor" on your side. Presumably, it's expected of us to find and rescue the fourth and still missing Virtual Console game for this week.
OLPC XO caught playing Super Mario Bros. 3
We've always considered computers to be entertainment machines first, means to an end second, and tools for learning a distant third, so it's no surprise to see thrill-seekers everywhere squeezing every last drop of excitement from the recently-shipped OLPC XOs. While we've already witnessed someone getting their fix of 1992 by hitting up a few rounds of Doom, the latest case of "installing noneducational software on laptops geared for learning" involves none other than Super Mario himself, as a clever individual has not only got Super Mario Bros. 3 up and running on the XO, but captured a video of the feat as well. So go on and click through to sneak a peek yourself, you know you can't resist.
VC Christmas: Super Mario, four more, no hand outs [update 1]
[Update: The original post erroneously listed the price for R-Type at 600 points. More here.]Nintendo has confirmed five titles for the Christmas Day Virtual Console update, and it's quite an impressive release. Just as we thought, Nintendo is not giving away any titles. Instead, they are uploading five major titles to increase their profit margin. The titles are: Super Mario Bros. (NES, 500 points): Nintendo's flagship title is sure to sell like hotcakes despite already racking up 40 million in sales since its 1985 release. How many times can we repurchase the game? Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (SNES, 800 points): Compared to the Xbox Live version, it's your choice whether you want online play or would rather pocket $2.00 in exchange rate difference (800 Nintendo points vs. 800 MS points). Super Castlevania IV (SNES, 800 points): One of the best in the series. Easily the best Castlevania title on the SNES, though it only had one other iteration (Castlevania Dracula X) to compete against. Toe Jam & Earl (Genesis, 800 points): Strong two-player action title, worth the price based on style alone. R-Type (TurboGrafx16, 800 points): One of the classic space shooters. We're excited by the list, even if our wallets aren't. Nintendo of America's Reggie Fils-Aime has talked about strategically releasing VC titles when there's a drought of first-party Wii titles. With all these delays recently announced, might we be seeing more great VC Mondays forthcoming? And when are we going to see Square Enix games or any Nintendo 64 goodies?Keep up on: Virtual Console Mondays
Gory Goomba guts gush, we giggle gleefully
Handre de Jager strikes again! The artist whose previous game interpretations include disturbing humanized versions of Kirby and Burger Time enemies has moved on to Mario 3. Although not visible in the adjacent image, a bloated Mario is seen smashing a helpless Goomba to a bloody pulp while onlookers (Lakitu, Luigi, and a couple of koopas) leer at one another. Skilled visionary or disturbed individual? We're on the fence about what to call him. Check out the full picture below, or click here for the super-sized (1024x1448) variant. You can view (and purchase) de Jager's other works here.
Speculating on the Virtual Console [Update 1]
Play-Nintendo has a "reliable list" (yeah, we know how those are) of games that are rumored to be on the Virtual Console. But it looks reasonable, and in fact, some of the titles are already confirmed by various sources. Their list is packed with classic titles, and some of them (oh, Castlevania, how we love you) are expected but still exciting, and others many of us still play on lazy Sunday afternoons (Ocarina of Time, anyone?) If this list turns out to be the real deal, we may have to take some extended breaks from our actual Wii games. A fanboy's life is full of difficult choices. Play-Nintendo also reports that their "source" confirmed five brand new games for the Virtual Console, but they couldn't reveal the details. We'll see. What are you dying to see? Frankly, we think Super Mario Bros. 3 is a necessity, if only because we know there'd be videos everywhere of fanboys reenacting scenes from The Wizard. If you could add any three games to this list, what would you choose? Full list after the jump.
Nintendo unveils Mario Strikers and Battalion Wars sequels at Leipzig, little else [update 2]
And the first new game to be marched onto the stage at the Leipzig Games Convention is Mario Strikers Charged, a Wii sequel to Mario's Gamecube exercise in frantic ball kicking. Eurogamer reports that the game is visually similar to the previous entry, but that it now sports special moves for the Wiimote. You can seemingly hold the Wii controller up to block incoming shots with your hands, though more enterprising players will surely have a lot more fun (and awkward injuries) strapping the wiimote to a foot and going ballistic. Battalion Wars 2 -- as in BWii -- was also announced and is expected to be playable on the show floor. No new information on it yet, but rest assured that we'll keep you updated. That being the opposite of what Nintendo has done regarding Wii launch information, of course. Many expected their "Wii Prove Our Promise" keynote to toss a stick of dynamite into the Wii rumor mil and blow the constant launch date hearsay and price pontification to unrecognizable smithereens, but Nintendo has deemed it necessary to keep people in the dark for a little bit longer. We'll get you for this, Iwata.[Update: One other minor announcement -- Europe gets the gloriously pink DS Lite on October 27th.][Update: There's some video footage now up of the game. Check it out here and after the break.]
Fuzzy logic: Lara Croft > Mario?
According to Eidos' SCI's Ian Livingstone, Tomb Raider vixen Lara Croft is "the most famous character in gaming." Interviewer Paul Loughrey of GamesIndustry.biz then questions whether or not he means most famous ... other than Mario. Livingstone adamantly asserts that Mrs. Croft is indeed more popular than Nintendo's gaming icon."Well, Mario is still very much within the games niche, whereas Lara has gone beyond that thanks to two blockbuster films, for example. She's graced the covers of thousands of not just games journals, but lifestyle journals as well."We'll admit, much to our chagrin, that Super Mario Bros. film was not the glorious re-imagining of Nintendo's flagship series, nor was it a box office smash (the total domestic gross was $20.9 million, which would be approximately $32.3 million today when adjusted for ticket price inflation). But Mario, we'd argue, is still more of a household name. While there is no quantitative backing to either assertions, we'd like to point out that Livingstone's support is rather inefficient. In 1966, John Lennon exclaimed that the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus." And while we suspect those zany Brits did grace more magazine covers than the founder of Christianity, it's still a stretch to elevate a band over a world religion.And though the Mario film sunk, his power was seen elsewhere in pop culture. Not to mention his games tend to do better, both financially and critically.
"He's a collector"
Brett Martin is 26. He lives in Colorado with his wife. And, by his estimation, owns roughly 10,000 to 15,000 individual pieces of gaming memorabilia. And you thought you were a fanboy...
CNN Money sees Wii launching as early as September [update 1]
The words of CNN Money's Chris Morris, which suggest a Wii launch in late September or early October, are certainly tantalizing and not entirely unrealistic. Getting the machine onto store shelves and into our loving, embarrassingly weak arms would give Nintendo a healthy lead on the PS3 and Microsoft's glut of holiday titles, not to mention the joy it would grant fans of intergalactic bounty hunters and pointy-eared archers. Morris cites an earlier analyst report by P.J. McNealy of American Technology Research which notes that Nintendo already began manufacturing final retail consoles on 21 June, providing ample time until a prospective September launch.Further evidence comes in the less sturdy form of past release dates of Nintendo consoles, with only the Gamecube missing an October or September release window. Of course, if the Wii launches worldwide immediately, one would expect a strategy similar to that of the DS launch -- that one happened in November as well. While it's not entirely unfeasible, Morris' suggestion is still swathed in speculation. With no details available on manufacturing, Nintendo may have simply started up the production line early (if they did so at all) to avoid launch shortages which plagued the Xbox 360 and are sure to plague Sony's machine.Unfortunately, it looks like the only words we can fully trust right now are the ones from official (and sober) Nintendo men and women.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!][Update 1: Nintendo has (predictably) put the kibosh on this one, with a spokesperson stating, "There's no change in our plan to release the console in the last quarter of this year."]
DS Lite pwned Japan in June
As if those weekly hardware charts weren't enough to convince you, Next Generation has put up a report that once again underlines just how well the DS Lite is performing in Japan. The words "ridiculous", "ludicrous" and "criminal" certainly spring to mind when noting that the Lite sold 575,000 units last month, making for a grand total of 2.6 million thus far. New Super Mario Bros. has been flying off the shelves with equal aplomb, right into the hands of 1.8 million nostalgia-craving gamers. It has become one of eight DS games to break through the meticulously guarded million sold barrier. As part of those who initially thought the DS to be a silly device that would be beaten to a pulp in the handheld gaming ghetto, we've been proven wrong again and again. And again. Let's be honest now. Did you expect this to happen back in 2004?
New Super Mario now stomping across Europe
Not content with conquering Japan and America, the newly revamped, newly released, New Super Mario Bros. now set its non-insidious sights on Europe, land of collosseums, queens and curiously leaning constructions. Nintendo of Europe has announced that the game has shipped to stores, just in time to be snatched up over the weekend. Expect Mario to hit his presumed homeland of Italy in full force, devouring mushrooms and smashing bricks, though sadly not fixing leaky plumping. If you haven't purchased the game already, check out its updated official site and catch yourself whistling along to the music.
Nintendo plays numbers game, loses
Nintendo's most recent press release exhibits the interesting quality of simultaneously telling us something we already knew and something we didn't. The first part should be fairly obvious if you boast any familiarity with portly Italian plumbers: New Super Mario Bros. for the DS is a huge success in North America -- certainly nothing worthy of a collective gasp. Selling over 500,000 copies since its May release, the shell-smashing, block-bashing retro platforming trip has practically given Nintendo permission to nonchalantly reach into your pocket, feel around for a few seconds and make off with your wallet. What we weren't aware of, however, is that Nintendo really should have been sticking their hand into your front shirt pocket. That's where your calculator is. Nintendo claims that after "just 35 days on store shelves," the game has had a sell-through rate of "more than 20 every minute since the game went on sale May 15." O RLY?Be sure to mock us if our primitive thought processes are incorrect, but let's consider for a moment that there are 24 hours in a day and 60 minutes in an hour. That's 1,440 minutes a day, and so the 35 days that New Super Mario Bros. has been on sale (even though it's been longer than that now) equates to 50,400 minutes. Divide 500,000 by that number and we get ... just under 10 copies sold per minute. Had Nintendo actually sold 20 copies per minute, they would have already hit over a million, and we're pretty sure that would warrant a press release all on its own. Dr. Kawashima is going to be so disappointed.
May NPD sales: Plumber popularity soars
According to the NPD group's thorough and unusually keen sales analysis, Mario's latest block-bashing, Koopa-kicking, shell-sliding adventure was the bestselling game in the US for the merry month of May. Following closely on the portly plumber's hopping heels was Brain Age, nestled snugly in third place. It seems that New Super Mario Bros. was just the thing to wean gamers off that nasty heroine addiction.The Top 20 best-selling titles for May according to NPD: New Super Mario Bros. (DS) Kingdom Hearts II (PS2) Brain Age: Train Your Brain In Minutes a Day (DS) God of War (PS2) Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (Xbox 360) Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Xbox 360) MLB '06: The Show (PS2) Guitar Hero (with Guitar) (PS2) Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2) Kingdom Hearts (PS2) X-Men: The Official Game (PS2) Over the Hedge (PS2) Fight Night Round 3 (Xbox 360) FIFA World Cup 2006 (PS2) The Godfather: The Game (PS2) Gran Turismo 4 (PS2) Battlefield 2: Modern Combat (Xbox 360) Midnight Club 3: Dub Ed Remix (PS2) Major League Baseball 2K6 (PS2) Major League Baseball 2K6 (Xbox 360)
Japanese software chart, 22-28 May: Mario madness
Giving his competitors a veritable butt-stomp, Mario finds himself at the very top of the Japanese software sales chart this week -- nearly 900,000 people donned their rose-colored glasses and marched out of a store with a copy of the portly plumber's retro adventure. [DS] New Super Mario Bros. [DS] Brain Training 2 [DS] Brain Training for Adults [PSP] Dragon Quest & Final Fantasy in Itadaki Street Portable [DS] Tetris DS [PS2] Kimikiss [PS2] World Soccer Winning Eleven 10 [DS] English Training [DS] Animal Crossing: Wild World [PS2] Jikkyou Powerful Major League
Wii impressions: the E3 experience
Due to how the Joystiq staff divided the Wii games' coverage, I ended up posting about a game that needs a lot of work (Madden), a game that needs a little (Metroid Prime 3), a couple of games that show promise (WarioWare & Elebits), and a game that is simply a gimmick (Final Furlong). I also played: Super Mario Galaxy, RedSteel, Twilight Princess, and Tennis. I'm not convinced that, at this stage, the Wiimote and nunchaku add-on are superior to a gamepad. Miyamoto, speaking last night at a developer's event, said that after becoming comfortable with the Wiimote, it's now impossible for him to go back. I'm not there yet, and I know I'm not alone. It's gonna take a lot of work to rewire how we, longtime gamers, play video games. It's important for Nintendo to understand this, and I believe they do.
Wii impressions: Super Mario Galaxy
Though players have long become accustomed to controlling Nintendo's iconic and portly plumber, Super Mario Galaxy marks somewhat of a departure from that tradition. You still control Mario's movements with the analogue stick on the left nunchuck, but the wiimote in your right hand actually allows you to exert an influence on the world itself. A little on-screen star indicates where the wiimote is pointing and by holding down the B-button, you can grab onto various items and structures. For instance, if you run the cursor through a patch of flowers, it will gently rustle in reaction to the presence of your invisible hand. While you have Mario running and jumping about and doing his usual platforming, you can manipulate objects in the environment in order to help him out.The game world seems to be comprised of a bunch of little planets floating in space, with Mario seeking out different ways to travel between them. One method of transportation is what appears to be a giant elastic plant. Mario climbs to the top and, using your wiimote, you grab onto the plant, stretch it into one direction and then release the button to have Mario slingshot to a different panet. It's an extremely intuitive experience and really creates the impression that you are reaching into Mario's little universe and making things a little easier for him. You can also stun and tip over the meandering Goombas by running your cursor across them, allowing Mario to finish them off with a good 'ole butt-stomp. Mario's usual repertoire of moves remains intact, with a vigorous shake of the wiimote activating a furious spinning attack. It's effective for clobbering enemies and activating the various star lifts scattered across the levels. The levels themselves look excellent from a graphical standpoint, boasting some stylish lighting effects and crisp and colorful textures. As far as depictions of plumbers in outer space go, I'd say this is probably the best one I've seen. Super Mario Galaxy really does make up for a lot of the graphical shortcomings of other Wii games. In fact, its unusual and engaging control system provides provides one of the best glimpses of the system's potential we've seen so far.
Super Mario Revolution sighting, maybe
OnNintendo.com has posted two images — snagged from NintendoGlobal.net — of an unidentified Mario title. Of course, since these images are unidentified, they are likely fake, concocted by an overactive Photoshop buff.It's worth noting that copyright tags have been pasted on the images, accompanied by resolution values. The tag on the image to the left reads: 2006 Nintendo 480i; to the right: 2006 Nintendo 480p.
