Super Mario Brothers

To quote from The Incredibles, “there’s no school like the old school.” That’s especially true when it comes to video games.

I knew before I bought the Wii from my friend Dave that you would be able to download classic games from Nintendo for a small fee. This was one of the first things I looked into after we bought the Wii. I think it was actually the selling point for Danielle, because it allows her to play her favorite game of all time – Toe Jam and Earl (which, by the way, I think is incredibly boring, but that’s just me).

Right away I saw that I could download Super Mario Brothers from the original Nintendo Entertainment System. This game was released in 1985, which just amazes me. We have come so far in terms of video games in the last 22 years. It really boggles the mind sometimes.

But I digress. Saturday I was showing our friends’ son, Kurt, how to play this classic game. The highlight, of course, was when we finished the game. It brought back the feeling of being 7 or 8 again and experiencing the magic of playing the game. The way your heart skips a beat when you think you’re going to fall off a ledge, or the way you almost fall out of a chair when you throw your whole body into the game. When your biggest problem in life was getting a little pixelated character through a series of scrolling levels to save a princess.

The second highlight came in level 3-1, where you can earn unlimited free men by hopping repeatedly on one of the turtles coming down the steps at you. This was always a challenge for us when we were growing up. It took a couple of tries, but I got it soon enough.

It was just great to feel that same excitement I experienced as a kid again. It made all my “grown up” problems and life issues seem to disappear, if only for an afternoon.

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