Unfortunate

Due to an unforeseen case of food poisoning, I won't be able to post anything today (except this notification, of course). Needless to say, the events from yesterday evening and this morning have me developing an aversion to food. I hope, if all goes well, you'll still see the fat, jolly Martin and not the skinny, pissed off anorexic Martin next time you see me. Honestly, without food, my life is nothing, and this event has to be the biggest test of my life.

Now excuse me while I go throw up.

A Mario Retrospective - Part I

Welcome to a multiple-part retrospective of the Mario series, starting with Super Mario Bros. and working its way to the latest Mario adventure, Super Mario Galaxy. It will only cover the core games in the Mario series. Spinoffs will not be included. This is Part 1.

Super Mario Bros.

Mario’s plumbing/adventuring career began with the legendary Super Mario Bros., a launch title for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was a simple yet engaging game that jump-started the ailing video game industry and is considered by many to be the greatest game of all time.

Recent experience tells me that that may no longer be the case, but this game still holds a special place in my heart. It’s one of the first (and finest) games I’ve ever played, and I find myself playing it over and over again to this day. My question: what makes the game so damn special? The following is an exploration of the game as a whole, examining its individual elements.

You can't tell me you don't remember this.

The most essential part of any game is its story. Not really whether it’s a good story or not, but just that it has one. The Mario Bros.’s first foray into Mushroom Kingdom savior-hood actually has a pretty interesting story. Bowser, the King of the Koopas, takes over the Mushroom Kingdom by turning its denizens, the Mushroom People, into blocks, mushrooms, and multiple other weird knick knacks. Only Princess Peach, the Mushroom King’s daughter, can undo the spell, and Bowser kidnaps her to prevent her interference in the matter. Little does Bowser know that the humble plumber duo, Mario and Luigi, are the only ones with the courage to save the princess and take on the evil Koopa Clan.

Sure, it sounds like standard fairy tale fare, but compared to some of the subsequent storylines in the Mario series, it’s by far the most original (Ignore Super Mario Bros. 2). Not only is this where we witness the transformation of the Bros. from plumbers to full-fledged heroes, but there’s an actual reason Bowser has kidnapped the princess.

By now, most basic elements in the Mario series seem like nothing new. However, twenty-three years ago, nobody had heard of walking mushrooms, giant turtles whose shells were oh-so-kickable or an Italian man who could shoot fireballs. Every element we’ve seen in Mario games over the years has originated in this game. Goombas, Koopa Troopas, Piranha Plants, Hammer Bros., you name it – it all started here.

The sound is something special here, too. I get chills every time I hear the sound of Mario going down a pipe or collecting a Magic Mushroom, causing him to grow. Everybody recognizes the classic Mario theme music, which we first heard in this game. In fact, every bit of music in this game is as recognizable today (maybe even more) as it ever was. To be perfectly honest, every single bit of sound in this game is some of the most influential in video game history.

The graphics of the game, compared to some of today’s, are a bit outdated. Granted, this was when the modern video game era was in its infancy, so the graphics designers can be given a little slack here. For the time, they were some of the best anybody had seen. For one, this was the first game to take part in more than one screen, and was one of the first to feature scrolling landscapes. The color palette of the NES was out in full force here, and for many the capabilities of the system were amazing. I think the only complaint I have here is that the princess’s sprite looks like it came out of the circus or something.

Uhh...let's be friends and call it a night.

All in all, Super Mario Bros. is considered to be one of the most influential games of all time, and can be considered the game that single-handedly revived a dying video game industry. Though the entire package looked a bit modest, it nevertheless delivered a gameplay experience that launched a thousand games and is imprinted into gamers’ minds the world over.

A Perusal of the Lesser Mario Brother

Two of the most recognizable characters in video game history are, of course, the Super Mario Bros. There’s gaming icon Mario, star f countless games and recognizable the world over. Luigi, Mario’s younger but taller brother, is arguably just as famous. The pairing of these two legends goes back to 1983, when modern console gaming was only an afterthought; the video game crash from earlier in the decade rendered home consoles all but obsolete. The two would pair up again in 1985’s Super Mario Bros., revitalizing the video game industry. The two have been considered saviors of the industry and are revered by many worldwide.

My favorite video game character would definitely have to be Mario. His games have brought me loads of enjoyment. But honestly, I believe that the better character of the two is Luigi. Yes, you read that right.

Let’s face facts here – Mario’s a likeable character and all, but he’s boring. He’s courageous, jovial – all around he’s a wonderful person, but he seems to be lacking any sort of humanity. In most games his courage is unwavering. He seems almost like a robot.

But where Mario lacks any depth, Luigi takes the cake in terms of being an interesting character. Unlike his older brother, he’s an absolute fraidy-cat. Luigi’s Mansion is where his personality really started to shine. He was trapped in a huge mansion in search of his brother, and it was all he could do not to cry out in terror every waking moment of his stay. Luigi’s nervous humming throughout the game really drew me to the character – his quirk was his most endearing quality. After LM, Luigi retained his cowardly tendencies, though sometimes it made him seem like a wuss. If you need proof, pop in any installment of the Super Smash Bros. series and check out his moveset.

Case in point.

From LM, the development of Luigi’s personality skyrocketed. He developed his trademark goofy walk, which can be seen in prevalent titles like New Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Galaxy. His voice, deeper than Mario’s, is now ingrained into his being, now no longer replaced with high-pitched voiceovers like in Super Smash Bros. Melee and the Japanese version of Mario Kart 64. And, most notably, his irrational fear of EVERYTHING makes him a delight to watch in tense situations (Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga comes to mind).

Sometimes, however, things are taken a bit too far, and it’s difficult to take Luigi seriously as a character. He’s constantly trampled under the feet of others, inconceivably wimpy when it comes to saving the day, and, as such, remains perennially trapped in his brother’s shadow. I’m not saying you should make Luigi into Mario. I’m just saying, maybe Luigi wouldn’t be such an underdog if his creators didn’t go overboard with the “wimpiness” thing. He’s a Mario Brother for God’s sake, not Scooby-Doo.

Sizzlin'

Boy, do I love being stuck studying for finals right in the middle of record-breaking heat. Somebody please kill me.

Smashing!

About two months ago, the highly anticipated title Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released to rave reviews, riding high on its wave of hype. Everyone, including me, was enthralled with the game, and hailed it as one of the great games of this era. Now that the months have passed, it’s time for me to act ala William Wordsworth and reflect on this moment of intense emotion in a later moment of tranquility (for those of you unfamiliar with Wordsworth, don’t worry about it; it’s an English major thing). It felt to me like something was missing from the game.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a Nintendo fanboy. That won’t change anytime soon. But even a fanboy can have his doubts.

I loved Super Smash Bros. Brawl. It was everything I hoped it would be. It was fun. The character roster was huge. The items, stages, and the game-changing Smash Ball made things unpredictable and intense. All in all, the game, in my book, would definitely be considered one of the finest ever.

But something felt wrong to me. It was an uneasy experience, let me tell you. It hurt me to even consider those emotions and associate them with a Nintendo game.

Let’s start with the single-player mode. Mario and Kirby are having a friendly game of let’s-beat-the-crap-out-of-each-other (like the intro to the first game, no?). Everything goes to hell, and what ensues is an epic quest to find some guy with butterfly wings and kick his ass for some reason. Fair enough.

The first few levels in the game are pretty cool. Colorful stages, bumpin’ music, fun enemies. Mario and Pit team up. Pretty cool.

But after a while, you realize it’s this way for pretty much the whole game, except the bright colors and bumpin’ music make way for dank underground levels with boring, repetitive music (why did they use the music from the underground levels of Super Mario Land? The rest of the music from that game was much better). The enemies start to get harder to beat, but rather than adding an element of challenge to the game, it instead gets a little tiring.

The last level was kind of a pain, as well. You pretty much have to go through every level from the entire game, killing the same enemies over and over as you rescue your friends by beating the hell out of them. The first couple of characters I rescued were fun to get, but after about the 15^th guy it gets a little tiring. Once you’ve finally kicked the last ass, it’s time to find the final boss, Tabuu.

But hold on a second, here. Before the final boss battle begins, you’re treated to a CG video in which Sonic the Hedgehog pops up for no apparent reason. Did he really get through the trials that Mario and about 30 other characters worked their butts off to get through? If that’s the case, then I’ve wasted my time. Way to make my accomplishments look meaningless.

Well, with Sonic’s little cameo out of the way, you’re finally allowed to take on Tabuu, who is pretty much Master Hand on steroids. I fought the guy about three times (my game got reset by a certain guy who will remain nameless), and all three times he took out about 3 of my 5 characters. He’s got some killer moves, with at least one being a guaranteed KO. I’m sure on a few more playthroughs he’ll be a little less hard to beat.

I have to admit the ending scene and the credits were really cool.

Now, moving on, I’ll come to the characters themselves. I was pleased with most of the character choices. But a few disappointed me a little. I don’t know why they even bothered to put the Ice Climbers in Melee, let alone why they brought them back for Brawl. Two characters from an obscure, crappy game for the NES have no business being among gaming’s elite. What’s next, the Balloon Fight guy in Smash Bros. Fracas (or whatever synonym for “fight” they’ve got lined up next)? If they could get Sonic and Solid Snake into the game, why couldn’t they get someone from like Mega Man or Ryu from Street Fighter in there? I’d rather see that than the Ice Climbers or ROB. Those guys are better suited to be Assist Trophies, anyhow. Hell, I would have taken King Hippo over those guys. He’s got all of that Nintendo personality.

Seeing Sonic in the game was a pleasant surprise, although it kinda felt like they crammed him in there at the last minute (which I think they did). They could have done some pretty cool things with him in the Subspace Emissary mode, but instead he just pops up out of nowhere right before you fight the last boss. That’s evidence enough for me that they didn’t intend to include Sonic in the first place.

Upon grabbing a Smash Ball, each character has the ability to execute his or her Final Smash attack, a spectacular move that one would do best to avoid. Each character in the game has a unique Final Smash, with the exception of a few characters, i.e. clones. Fox, Falco and Wolf all have the ability to summon and control a Landmaster Tank as their Final Smash. While it is fun to annihilate your friends with said tank, it nevertheless makes me wonder why you couldn’t call for an Arwing, a more recognizable symbol of the Star Fox franchise. If Capt. Falcon can keep his Blue Falcon, why not keep one of the most memorable elements of Star Fox? Both Link and Toon Link havea crazy, kick-ass combo as their Final Smash. Those Final Smashes are tons of fun to execute, but I can’t help but think that Toon Link could use his power over wind a little more.

But the character selection is, overall, excellent. There isn’t really anything about the Final Smashes that could possibly bring the game down as a whole. Clone characters were prevalent in Melee as well, but different enough to create a unique playing experience. The same can be said here.

The Wii’s graphical ability has been a cause for criticism in the recent console wars, but honestly, some characters don’t need to look like real people. Take, for example, my favorite plumbing pair, the Mario Bros. They’re supposed to look goofy. They’re supposed to look cartoonish. What I got in Brawl was two brothers with washed-out clothes that, to me, really messed with the overall character design. The Mario in Melee looked detailed, but just enough so that he could retain his cartoonish character design. If you make a Mario that looks too detailed, you’ll eventually end up with something like this. Seeing the Bros. like this really took that familiar Nintendo feel away.

Perhaps my favorite part of playing Melee was hearing the fantastic and varied music for each level. Listening to some of that music really picked me up. Brawl does have some fantastic music, but it comes in such a large volume some of it sounds a bit generic and uninspired. Most notable to me is the music from Pokemon, which pretty much all sounds the same. Kirby seemed to have the best music in Brawl, which is no surprise since Masahiro Sakurai, the game’s director, is the creator or Kirby. Honestly, this game’s rendition of the King Dedede theme is some of the best game music I’ve ever heard.

Also prevalent in Melee were the amazing orchestral renditions of classic game music. But this time around, I counted two original orchestral pieces: the main theme and the Fire Emblem theme. The rest of the orchestral pieces were taken from earlier games and labeled “original”. They all sounded fantastic, but I sorta expected a little more.

I dunno. This game was awesome. Honestly, it’s one of the best I’ve played in a long time. But it seems to be missing that soul that has been in all the Nintendo games I’ve played before. Some of the main causes are listed abov, but for all I know, I may just be growing out of video games. Since I played Brawl, my gaming life seemed a little off. Perhaps it’s just a little bump in the road, and when I pop Smash back into the Wii when I’m home from college, all those doubts will be washed away.

Blue Redemption

I hate Sonic the Hedgehog.
I hate his stupid guts.

You’ll understand that I needed to get that out of the way quickly. Keep in mind also that though I am a Mario fanboy, I nevertheless have a legitimate reason to hate him. Yes, the Blue Blur has become one of gaming’s biggest laughingstocks over the last decade or so, but there was a time when Sonic was once associated with “excellence”. A few examples: Sonic 1, 2, 3, and that epic pairing of Sonic 3 and Knuckles. Few games have surpassed or even come close the quality of those games. I loved that spiky little jerk with all my heart. I loved talking about what kick-ass things you could do and how Robotnik’s nailbiting boss battles were the one thing I looked forward to when I turned on my Genesis.

But now I look at that blue bastard, and a rage is instilled within me that makes me want to puke my Goddamn guts out. Everything he ever meant to me is now a distant memory. All he once stood for now means nothing. How did it ever get to be this way?

Well, for one, after a while, I couldn’t afford anything new. The Sega CD, the Sega Saturn, all that crazy stuff – were completely out of my reach. If my memory serves me correctly, all I had to go on from 1993-1995 were Game Boy games, with the occasional crappy third-party Genesis game in between. But then came late 1995, when my parents got me the system that permanently altered the course of my life – the Super NES. Our NES had broken some time before, so Mario and his pals were long absent from my life. But the magical holiday season of 1995 turned my life around. I will forever remember those couple of weeks as some of the best of my life. We took a trip out to New Mexico to see my grandparents, and beforehand, my father forbade me from taking the SNES with me. Keep in mind that this is happening Christmas Morning, the very day I received that blessed machine. Well, we get to New Mexico, and lo and behold! My father had actually caved and decided it was ok to take the system with us. It goes without saying that that trip was enjoyable in every sense of the word.

So Mario makes his triumphant return, and from here on Sonic only makes occasional appearances in my life. The years passed by, and so did the systems – the N64 and the Game Boy Color had come and gone, each with its own attached special memories – and then came the Nintendo GameCube. With only Luigi’s Mansion to satiate my Mario addiction for that first year or so, I needed something to fill that gap in the meantime. It was subsequently announced that Sonic would soon be arriving on the system in the form of Sonic Adventure 2, a game I had never played before. The reviews for the Dreamcast version were great, so I held out hope for redemption. The little guy would soon be making his triumphant return to the life of Martin. But I was wrong.

The game sucked. Sucked, sucked, sucked. I paid sixty dollars for a thin, rectangular lump of human feces. The entire game, excepting the optimism-inducing first level, made me want to unscrew my head, remove my brain, and light it on fire. It was a glitchy, loveless piece of crap with no soul to speak of. Sonic’s vibrant, colorful worlds had made way for dark, lifeless “courses” that had too little checkpoints and too many Goddamned ways to die along the way. It hurt my soul to play that game. I was glad that Shadow died.*

But in a well-timed move, Sega soon released Sonic Mega Collection for the ‘Cube, and it really opened my eyes to how much fun the old Sonic games were. The colors, the music, the gameplay – everything was tied together perfectly. It really helped that I got the game during a particularly enjoyable visit to New Mexico. Even after all those years, the Genesis titles were still just as fun.

For some reason, my masochistic instincts compelled me to purchase Sonic Adventure DX and Sonic Heroes. Let me just take this moment to say FUCK YOU, SEGA.

I was lucky not to have owned an Xbox 360 or a PS3 when Sonic the Hedgehog came out. I was too busy having FUN with titles like Zelda, Twilight Princess and Wii Sports. Seriously, Sega. Another Goddamn hedgehog is gonna solve your problems?

A side note: While the main console Sonic games sucked, it is nevertheless worth mentioning that 3 VERY excellent Game Boy Advance games featuring our blue hero were released among all this crap.

Then things started to get scary. Sonic started appearing in Mario games. No. Not just Mario games. MEDIOCRE Mario games. His crappiness had started to carry over to my refuge. My Goddamn sanctuary was no longer safe. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games was a Sega-developed game, and one could easily tell. The game felt completely thrown together with no thought or love whatsoever. It was insulting.

Well, the point is this: Sonic used to be good, then he took a mean-ass dive. I took that personally. My heart had been broken.

But now comes this trailer for Sonic Unleashed, or whatever bullcrap name it’s called. To be honest, the trailer was amazing (But I wasn’t crazy about the mind-numbingly stupid “Wolf Sonic” bullcrap). The levels looked fun. The levels were colorful; the colors I had marveled over in the past were now back in full force. And it was just Sonic. Nobody else. Not even Tails. But I know Sega all too well after our little affair in the past. They have something here that could possibly rejuvenate the Sonic franchise, but I know deep down in my heart that they’ll find a way to fuck it all up. “Wolf Sonic” is an early indication of that.

And so I stick my nose in the air and say, “Poo-poo!” to you, Sega, you worthless, money-grubbing pigs. “Poo-poo” as in I thought your games played like “poo-poo”. “Sonic Unleashed” will never be a part of my life unless you can make that bitch great.

I mean it. That game had better put Mario Galaxy to shame. No kidding.

Welcome

This is Plumber's Log. This was a blog created by a gamer who just wants to offer his take on the industry. It may be interesting, it may be boring. We'll see. Anyway. I'll get a few posts up, see if anybody likes it, then see where I can go from there. Enjoy.