Super Mario 3D World

Played on: Nintendo Wii-U
Release Date: November 21, 2013

I never owned a Nintendo 64.

The brief moments I got with it were spent with Mario 64 and MarioKart 64. It was a world of wonder. There was something so much more impressive about Mario 64 than all of the 3D platformers found on the PS1 like Gex and Spyro.

I didn't play more than a level or two until I got a DS a decade later. I bought Mario 64 DS, playing about 6 hours of it, and hated that the magic wasn't there. It's one of those situations where you wish you didn't meet your hero because they turned out to be terrible.

I've tried to recapture that magic on the DS, 3DS, and now the Wii-U, and I'm realizing that magic may be gone, but that doesn't mean there's not a good game there.

Super Mario Maker

Played on: Wii-U
Release date: September 10, 2015

I've not had this dumb, childlike grin on my face in nearly 20 years.

In a way, I've been chasing the feeling of playing Mario, Sonic, Metal Gear Solid, and Resident Evil for the first time. These moments in gaming that are forever burned into my memory, causing me to buy every single entry in the series against my better judgement. (I'm looking at you Resident Evil 6.)

Super Mario Maker is the first time I've felt like a game has changed what I think about games since probably the original Gears of War.

There have been level editor platforming games before like Little Big Planet, but none of them quite nail the addictiveness and fun of Super Mario Maker.

MarioKart 8

Over the weekend, I actually got my hands on a real life WiiU, in the wild.

My brother bought a WiiU a few weeks ago after getting a new job. He's always been a huge Zelda fan, so it was really only a matter of time. Well that time is now.

We played the new MarioKart and while it was fun, I did find myself missing older titles.

Some of the courses contorted and bent like a roller coaster, sending you in and out of water, really distorting what was happening. This was especially bad since we were playing with three players and had small screens.

I'm not saying MarioKart has always had courses built on the laws of nature, but at the very least, you could see how this track could exist. MarioKart 8 did not have this.

I also hadn't held a Wii-mote in nearly 3 years now. It felt foreign to me. I struggled to remember which hand to hold the nunchuk in. I couldn't remember any of the button names as my brother yelled out controls mid-race. After 4 or so races, I had a good enough grasp to hold first place in every race for the next hour.

The WiiU tablet thingy didn't feel right for me, but it seems to be a matter of preference. Those that were accustomed to DS or 3DS handhelds found it really comfortable.

We raced a good 20-25 races before calling it quits and as I left my brother's house, I couldn't help but think how much I would love to play the original MarioKart or Double Dash. (I never owned a N64, so there wasn't nostolgia for that version)

Something didn't sit right having extra characters show on the roster that are going to be DLC later on. Staring at Link and Tanooki Mario on the last row, knowing they would be paid DLC (and for a good price at that) felt so un-Nintendo. I'm used to Nintendo being that one company that releases their full game on one disk and that's what you get.

It's weird because on paper, this game is MarioKart. The tracks feel right, the carts feel right, most of the powerups feel right (except the sonic music thing, that felt like something from Vigilante 8) but somehow it didn't click.

Super Mario Brothers 3 vs. Super Mario World

Usually when someone talks about the greatest of the Mario games, either Super Mario Brothers 3 or Super Mario World are argued for.

Sure, there is the occasional person that throws Mario 64 or the original Super Mario Bros into the mix, but generally I think Mario 3 and World are the two best of the pre-2000 core-Mario games.

If I took an official vote, my bet would be that Mario 3 is the overall favorite.

It was the first game with the diverging paths world map, insane amounts of secrets, memorable boss battles, and that ridiculous combo of the maze like world 7 and difficult world 8.

I sat cross legged, challenging myself to beat the game without using whistles and saving that P-wing until the flying fortress level for several years.

Mario was fine tuned and indeed, Mario 3 is probably the best game on the NES, but I always tend to have a soft spot for Super Mario World.

It's partly because I didn't actually own a SNES and didn't get as much time with Super Mario World. There was a point where I did have some Mario 3 fatigue.

Super Mario World has its own bullet-ed list of features that could go bullet for bullet with Mario 3, like an even larger world map, more secrets, the introduction of Yoshi in a Mario game, and a diverse set of levels.

But I think it's more about the social aspects of the game. I remember setting up a 27" standard definition television on the bottom bunk of my cousin's bunk bed, his window open allowing the crisp autumn air to blow against our shirtless bodies, and draping sheets over the outside to give us a cave to fully escape into this other world. (It sounds like some pre-teen, homoerotic adventure now that I've typed it out)

We would scream, laugh, talk about small world's issues, discuss what we were going to blow our allowance on, and beg his mom to order us pizza.

It was a game that couldn't be beat in one weekend. We grew with the game. Sure, we might have beat Bowser after just a couple weekends, but that 55% completion on the save screen mocked us. We spent months finding all of the secrets we could, until we were forever stuck on the 5th Special level.

Eventually we noticed girls and more adult oriented video games like Resident Evil took over our Friday-post-roller-skating-game-nights. Super Mario World was packed into a box and largely forgotten about. It wasn't until last fall when I was given a family member's SNES and about 15 games that I remembered the magic.