Jon Gracey's

Posts Tagged ‘Mario’

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Games That Rocked…Jenny Williams’ World – #48: WarioWare: Smooth Moves

In Wii on December 6, 2013 at 11:59 am

Title: WarioWare: Smooth Moves

Format: Wii

Released: January 12th, 2007

WarioWare Box Art

I’m not what you’d call a hardcore gamer. That’s not to say I’ve never played (there was many a month in my childhood when all my father saw of me was the top of my head, as I hunched over a boxy, grey console attempting to line up various descending boxes into neat rows), but they’ve never been as important to me as they have been to some of my friends. I suspect one of the problems is I have quite limited taste in games. Read the rest of this entry »

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Games That Rocked…Benny Davis’ World – Musical Interlude

In 3DS, DS, Game Boy, Gamecube, N64, NES, SNES, Virtual Console, Wii, Wii U on September 26, 2013 at 10:14 am

Today’s post is by musician Benny Davis, of comedy rock gods The Axis Of Awesome.

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Title: Anything with Mario in it

Format: Anything with Nintendo on it

Released: Anytime after July 9th, 1981

Mario Through The Ages

I played Mario as a kid. I wasn’t a huge gamer, I played Nintendo a lot, but mostly Mario. If Mario wasn’t in it, then I probably wasn’t interested. Countless hours of trying to save the Princess made for a singular approach. With many Nintendo games of an era gone by, save points were rare, so in order to beat a level you had to go from the start to the finish in one go. One slip and you’re dead, back to the start. Maybe 3 slips, depending on what your life bar is like. Of course fall down a hole and you’re toast; you could be fit as a fiddle but no level of strength will help you survive a plunge into a bottomless pit. Or maybe it will, but you’re still stuck down there, descending ad infinitum. Read the rest of this entry »

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Games That Rocked My World – #9: Mario Kart 64 – Part II

In N64, Virtual Console on November 14, 2011 at 4:40 pm

Title: Mario Kart 64

Format: N64, Virtual Console

Released: June 24th, 1997

Box_art_image_ii

If nostalgia is a beast that seduces the brain during one’s formative years, then the resultant offspring is truly spawned at university. (If you’re white and middle class. Like me!) All of a sudden everything you were into as a kid is retro and cool, and approximately 90% of university life is young adults repeatedly discovering they weren’t the only person to watch The Raccoons. Read the rest of this entry »

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Games That Rocked My World – #9: Mario Kart 64 – Part I

In N64, Virtual Console on November 7, 2011 at 5:13 pm

Title: Mario Kart 64

Format: N64, Virtual Console

Released: June 24, 1997

Box_art_image
Mario Kart 64. It was always going to come to this. Possibly the greatest multiplayer experience of all time. How to quantify the memories of a thousand red shells looping round the track to nip the heels of the race leader? How to convey the satisfaction of tricking a friend’s brain into hitting a fake item, even when it’s sitting on its own in the middle of the track? How to describe the Gandalf-at-Helm’s-Deep feeling that is firing off a blue shell in the dying throes of the last lap, undoing someone’s entire race of careful driving, and squeezing past their accelerating form to take the win? Read the rest of this entry »

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Games That Rocked My World – #1: Mario 64

In N64, Virtual Console on September 12, 2011 at 3:08 pm

Title: Super Mario 64

Format: N64

Released: 1st March, 1997

Mario_64_box_art

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.) Read the rest of this entry »

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