Super Mario Bros. – The All Time Favourite Game

2007-08-28 Word Count: 610 Category: Games

Super Mario Bros. was launched more than 20 years ago, but it still rocks! It started as a platform game, but it soon became even more famous as a computer game, downloaded or played online by millions of internet users. Nowadays you can find it almost on every online games website.
Mario Bros is still very popular and you can easily find it in the free games or classic games categories.

SMB was developed and published by Nintendo in 1985. When it was released, it made a huge impact on home entertainment and it changed completely the way video games were created. Most people wouldn’t remember today how great the smooth-scrolling levels feature was - it became a landmark in home video-gaming.

Who doesn’t know the story of Mario and Princess Peach or the game play? The player impersonates Mario (or his brother, Luigi - in the case of a second player), who has to race, evade or eliminate Bower’s forces in the Mushroom Kingdom. The objective is a romantic one: to save Princess Peach.
The game consists of eight worlds with four levels in each world.

Throughout the different levels, Super Mario Bros attacks by simply jumping on top of his enemies, which kills the mushroom traitors, known as Goombas, and sending the Koopa Troopas into their shells. Mario and Luigi can then kick these shells into other enemies to dispatch them, but the shells can bounce back off walls or other vertical obstructions and hit them. If Mario gets a fire flower, he will have the ability to throw fireballs. Some enemies cannot be killed by stomping them; they can only be killed by turtle shell or fireball. Jumping or kicking shells in succession into enough enemies, double points are earned with each enemy killed; eventually Mario or Luigi obtain a 1-up (an extra life). Mario and Luigi can also get 1-ups if the find 1-up mushrooms or collect 100 coins. During the game online they gain several powers, upgrading into Super Mario/Luigi or Fire Mario/Luigi. Still, they can be hurt if touching an enemy and if they take a hit from an enemy they simply revert to regular Mario/Luigi and the game continues. Taking a hit as regular Mario/Luigi means falling down a pit (regardless of status), or if the time clock runs out, Mario loses a life and starts again. The game starts either from the very beginning or at an invisible "checkpoint" partway through the level, depending on how far he ran through the level before dying. There are no checkpoints in castles or in the final world. Mario can also collect a Starman and become invincible for limited time. Invincible Mario is immune to most obstacles and to the touch of enemy characters and he can simply kill them by running into them. However, he will still die if he falls in a pit, into lava or if time runs out.

At the end of each castle level, Mario fights "King Koopa" across a bridge over a pool of lava. He may be defeated either by touching the axe at the edge of the bridge or, as Fiery Mario, throwing fireballs at him to defeat him directly. At the end of each world, Mario is greeted with the words, "Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!" (a popular quotation among gamers).

Two years after the video game crash of 1983, in the United States, Super Mario Bros. meant the success for both the Nintendo Entertainment System and video games industry. It is the best selling video game of all time.

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