1996 was a momentous year for Mario as well as the evolution of video games. It was the year Mario broke out of the confines of 2d world and triple jumped his way into the hearts of gamers in Super Mario 64. Going from 16-bit sprites to 64-bit polygons seemed like a miracle. Mario had a great new 3d world to explore in, collect stars, and save Princess Peach yet again from the clutches of the evil King Bowser.
I remember renting a Nintendo 64 from blockbuster and experiencing Super Mario 64 for the first time. The first screen shows a big Mario head floating in space. With the cursor you can pull on Mario’s nose, ears, mustache, and hat to make funny faces.
Since it’s a one player game, I mostly watched as my older brother played and eventually conquered the game. It wasn’t actually until the beginning of this year that I whipped out our old Nintendo 64 and finally finished the game for myself. I’m sure glad did because even 15 years later this game is still a fantastic game. The fun ways in which Mario can run and jump his way through carefully designed levels exudes gaming goodness. The music is also catchy and the graphics, though far surpassed by today’s hd games, are charming and fit well in the Mario universe.
Super Mario 64 can be downloaded on the Wii’s Virtual Console or bought for the Nintendo DS as the remake Super Mario 64:DS. Either way, every gamer should experience the game that set the standard for 3d games at least once in their life.
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