25 Years of Super Mario Bros.

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25 Years of Super Mario Bros.

Posted by Soulskill on Monday September 13, 2010 @08:16AM from the don't-let-him-get-into-the-birthday-beer dept.

harrymcc writes "On September 13th 1985, Nintendo released Super Mario Bros. for the Famicom (NES) in Japan. It went on to become the best-selling video game of all time, a title it only recently lost. Over at Technologizer, Benj Edwards is celebrating the anniversary with a look at some of the weirdest variations, spinoffs, and tributes the game has inspired over the years, from edibles to art projects." The Guardian's games blog adds a bunch of Mario-related trivia, and CVG attempts to explain the history of Mario games. Nintendo is capitalizing on the anniversary by announcing an upcoming collection of classic Mario games (Japanese site, English explanation) that have been ported to the Wii.

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Twenty-five years? by MyLongNickName · 2010-09-13 08:17 · Score: 4, Insightful

Twenty-five years? Really? Damn... I'm old.

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1. Re:Twenty-five years? by commodore64_love · 2010-09-13 08:39 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  You think that's old? It's been 33 years since I first laid hands on an Atari console (still one of my favorite machines) with its Commodore-produced 6502 CPU and TIA sound/graphics chip (with an amazing 30x20 resolution).
  The Famicom was released in 1983 so we're talking about 27 year old technology! Its contemporaries were the Intellivision, Colecovision, Atari 5200 SuperSystem, Apple IIc/e, and C=64. (The Mac and Amiga didn't even exist yet.) Ancient, old, ancient technology. But hella fun.
  
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2. Re:Twenty-five years? by Hatta · 2010-09-13 08:42 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  It's not as hard as you remember it. Anyone with a little aptitude and practice can beat SMB. Compared to other games on the NES (Ninja Gaiden, Castlevania, etc) it's a walk in the park.
  
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3. Re:Twenty-five years? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-09-13 09:03 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  25 years later, I'm still trying to get to the end.
  1-1 to 1-2
  1-2 to 4-1 via warp
  4-1 to 4-2
  4-2 to 8-1 via warp
  8-1 to 8-2
  8-2 to 8-3
  8-3 to 8-4
  Be careful
  Run under the king
  Grab the axe
  game over.
  If you still can't do it, use savestates. Once you've done it once, the next few times are a breeze.
  Do it with a few friends and drinks to make it even more fun.
4. Re:Twenty-five years? by irwtdvoys · 2010-09-13 09:07 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  The trouble with warp whistles...
5. Re:Twenty-five years? by ProppaT · 2010-09-13 09:15 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  The Adventure of Link wasn't all that hard, honestly.
  You want difficult? Play Battletoads. I think that's the game that invented controller throwing.
  
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6. Re:Twenty-five years? by Alexandra+Erenhart · 2010-09-13 09:55 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Old 8 and 16 bits games beat the crap out of most recent games when it comes to difficulty. Nowdays it seems it's all about eye candy (cough cough I'm looking at you FFXIII), but the games never last more than 20-30 hours unless they're mmorpgs or really good rpgs/adventure games. And even then they're rather easy and you go through content without much problems. Kids and teenager gamers have no idea what they missed.
7. Re:Twenty-five years? by Sancho · 2010-09-13 10:08 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Interestingly, I think a lot of the old 8- and 16-bit games were difficult because of poor programming. Bad collision-detection and poor controls are high on the list of what made a lot of games hard. Super Mario Bros. head pretty bad controls--far from the worst on the NES, but probably the worst out of the entire series.
  Then you have bad design patterns that were repeated over and over throughout the industry--enemies that respawn if a particular tile goes offscreen, being knocked back uncontrollably by enemies (often into pits), enemies which simply can't be avoided or killed no matter what you try... It's really a combination of these three which made Ninja Gaiden (and many other games) super hard. Difficulty without frustration is hard to achieve, but modern games do better at it.
  Of course, death and repetition are what made games last any reasonable amount of time in the early NES days. Before you had passwords and saves, forcing you to master every level to get to the end was part of the experience. That's not universally true--some games like Metroid had an explorative element that extended playing time.
8. Re:Twenty-five years? by theaveng · 2010-09-13 10:26 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  The 2600 uses a 6507, not a 6502
  You are correct but it's the same difference really. Just as my 386SX laptop is still a 386, just minus some data lines. Or a 486SX4 is 486 but clocked three times faster. It's the same basic CPU, and yes Commodore owned the company (MOS) that made the 650x, 850x, and 65816. They basically got their PET, VIC20, C64, C128, Plus/4 and other computer CPUs for free (at cost).
  
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9. Re:Twenty-five years? by teslar · 2010-09-13 20:26 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  being knocked back uncontrollably by enemies (often into pits)
  What, as opposed to being knocked very uncontrollably onto a health pack? Why would an enemy want to do that? Surely knocking you into pits or at least making sure you lose control is pretty high up on the enemy's to-do list, so while I agree with the rest of what you say, this is a strange criticism.
  You should also add bad English to the list of things that make some games difficult. What were supposed to be helpful hints become mere cryptic messages. I'm looking at you, original Zelda.
  Then there were things that simply made no sense. Why could the blue candle only be lit once per screen, forcing you to exit and re-enter it until you've checked every damn bush (or several of them at once, but still) for something shiny? Things like that just made the game longer not by making it harder but simply by increasing the legwork you had to do. I think those were the things I hated most. Bad controls and so on, I could live with - eventually, you learned how to master them. You figured out what the actual collision detection was rather than what it should have been. You understood where a particular enemy would throw you and could use it to your advantage if the guy was really unavoidable. But spending 5 mins on burning bushes just cos the blue candle is rubbish? Please.
Heads up on that Mario collection by RyuuzakiTetsuya · 2010-09-13 08:18 · Score: 3, Informative

it's just a Wii port of Mario All Stars that came out in the US for SNES, same graphics and all.
The booklet and the soundtrack seem interesting packins though.

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Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
1. Re:Heads up on that Mario collection by AndrewNeo · 2010-09-13 08:46 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  There is a difference though, where the games on VC are NES games, and Super Mario All Stars is an SNES game. The graphics and sound are a higher quality.
2. Re:Heads up on that Mario collection by bonch · 2010-09-13 09:34 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  The All-Stars version of Super Mario Bros. has inaccurate physics when jumping and breaking a brick, unfortunately. Mario keeps rising in altitude instead of immediately falling down, which sounds minor but affects you if you're used to running and hitting bricks without stopping like in the original.
  For years, I thought I was the only one who ever noticed this, but I see that it's mentioned at TMK.
3. Re:Heads up on that Mario collection by Waffle+Iron · 2010-09-13 09:49 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  The All-Stars version of Super Mario Bros. has inaccurate physics when jumping and breaking a brick
  I think that *all* Mario games have inaccurate physics when jumping and breaking a brick. If they used accurate physics, Mario would fall to the ground unconscious immediately after whacking his head.
4. Re:Heads up on that Mario collection by QuantumBeep · 2010-09-13 14:01 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  I want you to go back and read what you just said.
And today is also... by The+MAZZTer · 2010-09-13 08:23 · Score: 3, Informative

Programmers' Day, the 256th day of the year. Quite a coincidence.
The Best-Selling Video Game of All Time... by Monkey · 2010-09-13 08:26 · Score: 4, Informative

For anyone wondering, the "best-selling video game of all time" is Wii Sports.
1. Re:The Best-Selling Video Game of All Time... by radish · 2010-09-13 08:50 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Well you could try this. It lists Wii Sports at over 66 million, which is over twice the total number of 2600's sold (according to this). It's kind of in a league of it's own, but then it was also bundled with the console which disqualifies it from the list in some people's eyes. The highest selling unbundled game is Wii Play AFAIK.
  
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2. Re:The Best-Selling Video Game of All Time... by Pojut · 2010-09-13 08:51 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  May we have a citation for your claim that Wii Sports is the best-selling?
  Here you go.
  
  --
  Living With a Nerd
3. Re:The Best-Selling Video Game of All Time... by Binestar · 2010-09-13 08:53 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  I bought Wii Play because it came with an extra wiimote, the game itself sucked =/. Same price for wiimote vs Wii Play so figured I'd get the game with my wiimote.
  
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  Do you Gentoo!?
4. Re:The Best-Selling Video Game of All Time... by hansamurai · 2010-09-13 08:54 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  If we're including pack-in games (which Wii Sports is in North America, but not in Japan), then wouldn't Solitaire be the best selling game of all time? It was "sold" with hundreds of millions of copies of Windows.
  
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5. Re:The Best-Selling Video Game of All Time... by The+MAZZTer · 2010-09-13 09:03 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  What if we don't count bundles but only stand-alone sales?
6. Re:The Best-Selling Video Game of All Time... by Monkey · 2010-09-13 09:32 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Not counting console bundled games like #1 Wii Sports (41.65m) #2 SMB (40.24m),and #4 Tetris ( bundled with original Gameboy, 30.26m), #5 Duck Hunt (included in the NES bundle that came with the orange gun, 28.31m), you might be surprised to find out that Pokemon games are the top contenders with the #3 overall spot held by Pokémon Red, Green, and Blue (31.38m) and #6 Pokémon Gold and Silver (23.11m).
  Some other titles are #7 Nintendogs (21.60m), #8 Super Mario World (bundled with the SNES, 20.61m) and #9 Wii Play (20.30m).
7. Re:The Best-Selling Video Game of All Time... by HelioWalton · 2010-09-13 09:40 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Same. I think in the end though, I bought around 25 of them. Reselling the set parted out (wiimote, and game individually) netted a nice profit...
8. Re:The Best-Selling Video Game of All Time... by Patch86 · 2010-09-13 10:05 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Super Mario Bros. was bundled with the console originally too. Presumably we weren't disqualifying that.
  Mine was a SMB/Duck Hunt twin-pak, and was awesome I might add.
Re:Who's #1 then by Pojut · 2010-09-13 08:35 · Score: 4, Insightful

Super Mario Bros was also a pack in title, for quite a long time.
How are so many people forgetting this?

--
Living With a Nerd
Nowhere near that long by Itninja · 2010-09-13 08:43 · Score: 2, Funny

I warped to World 8 and for me it's only been like 5 years.

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Re:One of Commodore's best sellers by RyuuzakiTetsuya · 2010-09-13 08:44 · Score: 2, Interesting

I thought the 6502 was a Motorola reference design?

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Re:And yet... by DIplomatic · 2010-09-13 09:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

...games released this year will be based on the same characters, plot devices and game mechanics as that title a quarter century ago. It's all summed up in Nintendo's motto: Why create when you can copy?
And yet I would rather play 100 games that feature Mario unnecessarily than yet another greyish-brown FPS where the protagonist is some sort of grizzled space marine. Say what you will about Nintendo and Mario games, but by and large they are fun.
Interesting product but not economical by damn_registrars · 2010-09-13 09:04 · Score: 2, Informative

So they are offering the first 4 Super Mario Bros games on one disc for around $30. The same 4 games can be purchased for your Wii through the virtual console for $5 each - totaling $20. I guess if the disc, manual, and soundtrack are worth another $10 to you, then go for it. Otherwise just buy the ones you want (or all 4 of them) as downloads and enjoy the savings.

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1. Re:Interesting product but not economical by MobileTatsu-NJG · 2010-09-13 09:23 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  So they are offering the first 4 Super Mario Bros games on one disc for around $30. The same 4 games can be purchased for your Wii through the virtual console for $5 each - totaling $20.
  
  The disc has the Super Mario All Stars (16-bit) versions of the games. Unless SMAS is on the SNES Virtual Console, you're not getting the same games, you're getting the versions with much better graphics and sound.
  On an un-related note, I worked at Funcoland back when the original Playstation and N64 came out. We dealt primarily with used games and we could not keep Super Mario All Stars in stock to save our lives. They'd actually pay up to $30 in store credit to get that collection and nobody wanted to give it up. I don't blame them. It was a nice upgrade and they even retained the glitches that made the first one so charming.
  
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I always preferred playing with my Willie... by pandrijeczko · 2010-09-13 09:46 · Score: 3, Insightful

...that of course being Miner Willie from the ZX Spectrum classics Manic Miner & Jet Set Willy.
I'm not criticising anyone's love of the Mario franchise of games but having gamed for 30-odd years from the ZX Spectrum through the Commodore Amiga and now to PCs, I think I've only ever played one Mario game for a short period of time on a friend's NES.
So my platform gaming heroes were Zool, Superfrog, Manic Miner and Wally Week (from Automania & Pyjamarama).

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Re:One of Commodore's best sellers by theaveng · 2010-09-13 09:47 · Score: 3, Informative

Commodore had nothing to do with the 6502

MOS was owned by Commodore. i.e. Same company. In fact one reason Commodore VIC-20 and 64 was so much cheaper than the competition was because they charged Atari, Apple, et cetera thrice the price that Commodore charged itself, so they could sell computers at only $150 each. Atari/Apple couldn't even get close.

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What the collection *should* be... by Digital+Vomit · 2010-09-13 10:01 · Score: 2, Informative
Here's what the Super Mario collection *should* be:
- Super Mario Bros
- Super Mario Bros 2 (US)
- Super Mario Bros 2 (Japan)
- Super Mario Bros 3
- Super Mario All-Stars
- Super Mario World
- Super Mario 64
Price: $20

That's the bare minimum acceptable product celebrating the 25th anniversary of Super Mario Bros.

For a few dollars more they could include the various GameBoy incarnations of Super Mario Bros, and maybe throw in the old Mario Bros for good measure.

Twenty-five years and all they do is re-release Super Mario All Stars? Please.

Of course, most of these games (along with their source) should belong to the Public Domain by now, but that's another story.
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Re:Who's #1 then by Patch86 · 2010-09-13 10:02 · Score: 2, Funny

Twin-pak with Duck Hunt, ftw!
Ah, childhood.
Re:Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement by g_rampage · 2010-09-13 14:20 · Score: 2, Informative

That's what (s)he is saying. Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement was a PC clone of Super Mario Bros (3, I think). After Nintendo rejected their offer to port it to PC they made Commander Keen.
Re:And yet... by tehcyder · 2010-09-14 02:48 · Score: 3, Funny

If you take things back far enough, all games are just variations on throwing a rock at a tree.

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