Super Mario Bros @ 25 / Alan @ 35 /

The 1st time that I laid eyes on super mario bros I was as a 9 year old.  

The summer after 4th grade, and I was at the house of a very wealthy classmate. They had stables and airplanes, servants and tennis lessons, and a entire room for legos. An entire room – full of Legos. But I really didn’t care that day because some of my other friends had told me they had something no one else had. They had a Famicom system straight from Japan. They had a game system that put all others to shame. You couldn’t even buy it in the US yet.

 I spent a weekend playing excite bike and super mario bros till I felt sick. It was incredible. It made the Atari look like pong. it made pong look like connect four. I could never go back again after I had seen world 1-1. The memory of playing it for the 1st time is very clear in my mind and  I remember the small desk in the room off of my friends huge spiral staircase entrance where the nintendo lived very well. It’s a good memory. When I hear the opening “doo doo doo doo doo doo! doo!” from SMB I can feel the mario fever that I had back then.

 I’d like to think that the game stands the test of time, and that people 100 years from now will appreciate it’s balanced game-play, cute character design, and cool music. It’s made it through at least two generations so far, as my young nephews all have played and loved the game and all its progeny. Time will tell, and I have my hopes.

Without too much gushing,  Shigeru Miyamoto, the game’s creator,  is the Bach of the gaming community for me – he laid out the immutable rules of game design and followed them to a T. There are greater works, to be sure, just like Mozart and Beethoven surpase the old master, but the classic that is video gaming’s Suite for Cello Solo No.1 in G, BWV 1007  will for me always be relevant and fun to play.

Happy birthday Super Mario Bros.