Title: Super Mario 64

Format: N64

Released: 1^st March, 1997

At the impressionable age of 12, Super Mario 64 blew my mind like a brain prostitute. Brought up on a diet of 2D Amiga platformers and the occasional PC adventure game round my mate Jay’s house, I had never seen anything that looked so exciting, and offered up such a tantalising world to explore. I had just moved to senior school, and the N64 was the console of choice among my peers. The PlayStation was more bad-ass and grown-up, but the multiplayer possibilities on offer from Nintendo made the N64 a firm favourite for sleepovers, which, being the social hubs of the time, pretty much sealed the deal. And then there was Goldeneye: a game so popular that my friend Aaron’s brother charged people at school £1 for completing a level on 00 Agent, not to mention extra to unlock the more difficult cheats (though I do remember he pityingly charged 1p for Dam, because it was “so easy”. I’ve since played it. It isn’t.)

I cannot remember being more excited about a console game before Super Mario 64. Until I was 13, I never had a console of my own, and the SNES and Mega Drive seemed like gateways to an impossibly enticing world I was only ever to sporadically visit, like an awesome 16-bit holiday. Indeed, most of my early friendships evolved from me attaching myself to whoever had a console I could come round and play. I was a bit of a shit like that.

Then the N64 came out, and I was reaching an age where it looked like I might finally get my own. I remember walking through Toys ‘R’ Us in Enfield and seeing an N64 gaming pod with Super Mario 64 and this kid actually playing on it, running around what I would come to know as Bob-Omb Battlefield. I was torn away by my friend Matt’s parents, but I never forgot that first glimpse.

Then The Twins got an N64. And dear god, by some incredible cheek – and I still can’t believe I did this, not to mention got them to agree to it – I asked if I could borrow it. And somehow they said yes. Now, it may be difficult for you to understand what it was for me to finally get my hands not only on a console – for the first time ever – but an N64. Realms of possibility reeled out in front of me. I don’t remember what games they lent me, if any, but for one: Super Mario 64.

Then I started playing. That music started, the letter from Peach – a noted departure from the Princess Toadstool of yore – appeared on screen (I was sufficiently well-versed by this stage from pestering various friends to play on their NESes and SNESeses to know the Mario Myth) inviting me to come and see her at her Castle. She’d baked me a cake. And Mario jumps out of that pipe, in glorious 3D, and all of a sudden you can go anywhere. It’s eerily quiet in the grounds of the castle, but it was filled with the “whoops” and “yahoos” of Mario stretching his legs, and me discovering what I could really do in this new world. I sat there grinning from ear to ear, unable to believe my luck! Look at me, playing a console in my own home! Then I got into the castle, the inevitable plot kicked into gear, and I long-jumped through a painting.

The game goes on to escalate and unfold in glorious style, encouraging experimentation, doling out secrets and new powers – including the unforgettable moment when you find out Mario can fly – but it was the exploration that really excited me. Diving through secret paintings, riding a cable car in a desolate snowy wasteland, sneaking through a haunted mansion, replete with f**king scary piano, surfing on lava, rugby tackling rabbits, riding magic carpets, rolling on logs, monster-hunting, goomba-punching. Stars.

“It’s-a me, Mario!”

Indeed, ol’ buddy. Let’s go exploring.