GAMING: SUPER MARIO BROS 2

So back in the early 90's I had an NES system just like most kids did and spent many hours playing games like Double Dragon, Duck Hunt, Castlevania, and of course Super Mario Brothers. I had many other NES games such as A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Ninja Turtles game, Skate or Die but they were poor in quality and so unplayable that I was always unable to complete them.

Back in the day it wasn't like it is today, where if you get a video game thats crappy you can trade it in or send it back to Love Film for something else better on your list. Back then if you ended up with a shitty game you were pretty much lumbered with it. I always prided myself even as a youngster in my gaming abilities and made it my goal to complete every game I was faced with.

With things being pretty care free for me at the time completing Terminator 2 on the Game Boy was a major thing which caused much stress for me and made me feel somewhat of a failure as a young man. I used to lay awake at night thinking how will I be able to one day raise a family if I cant even get past the third stage of Castlevania?

However Super Mario was the shining jewel of NES playing career and was something that really lifted my spirits and brought me back from the jaws of 8-Bit defeat. Super Mario was the ultra playable but still challenging godfather of the side scrolling plat-former genre. Super Mario eased you in slowly and then from out of nowhere got real tough, but with enough practice and timing you could beat it and feel much better about your self.

I remember the first time I completed it was around June 1991 and it was a great moment in my life. When I found out there was a second Super Mario Bros game I was overjoyed and managed to borrow a copy off of my friend Scott.

Now I recently discovered the whole background story of what was up with Mario 2 and how the Lost Levels from Mario All Stars on the SNES was meant to be the Mario sequel but it never reached the western world etc. But I have always had my own theory on the subject which is far more enjoyable than the truth and like my lying leprechaun father once said "never let the truth get in the way of a good story" so here it is.

After Mario rescued the princess (and washed all of Bowsers semen out of her hair and frilly dress) he had somewhat of a dilemma.  During his quest he ended up with tons of mushrooms while searching the other castles looking for the Princess. So he, the Princess, his brother and the little fat toad bloke all had a sit down and decided to have a mushroom party. After scoffing lots of these mushrooms they ended up on a spaced out trip in which proper fucked them up. The only way they were going to make it out of this pickle with out being Nintendo's equivalent of the Manson family, would be to work together as a team and just ride it out.

Now that may sound absurd but it is pretty hard to argue when you compare this game to its predecessor. The last game had the pipes, under ground levels, under water levels, castles, and the ability to shoot flames at stuff. In this game you have to go round throwing vegetables at hooded midgets wearing hockey masks while being chased by a floating face! if that doesn't have LSD written all over it then I don't know what does.

At the end of each level you are faced with what can only be described as an uncircumcised penis wearing a giant nappy as a boss. After this you would pickup a crystal ball which would vanish into thin air and then you  had to walk into a giant eagles face on a wall to finish the level.

In the end you would have to defeat a giant frog to escape this horrendous ordeal and survive the biggest Magic Mushroom trip of your lives.

Ok so now that my silly story about the cast of the game being high on psychedelic drugs is out of the way I will go onto to give my real opinion and verdict on this game. Super Mario 2 is one of the most fun, awesome , and best games ever to be released on the NES. The fact you had 4 different characters to choose from which all had their advantages and disadvantages made for a much more interesting game. The fact the levels where mapped vertically as well as horizontally makes the game really stand out compared to the other games in the franchise.

The weird and warped out environment made the whole caper that little bit more fun also. Some levels you had to ride magic carpets, dig through sand while being pursued by baddies, and bomb your way out of underground dirt mines.

In 1993 all of the NES Mario games were pimped up to 16-Bit with updated graphics and Stereo sound on Super Mario All Stars. The Mario Lost Levels (which was meant to be Super Mario 2) is also included on the cartridge. Now in my opinion I am so glad that the trippy Super Mario 2 was the one that made it instead of the Lost Levels as the Lost Levels is just Super Mario Brothers with a few minor changes. Another cool thing about the trippy version of Mario 2 is the fact that Luigi plays more of a major role as he is somewhat more superior than Mario as he can jump higher and much further than Mario can.

I am pretty sure you can pick this game up along with the rest of the NES Mario collection on a Nintendo Wii disc (but don't quote me on that as I am not certain) so try and get a copy if possible.

So yeah in its fucked up little way Mario 2 is one of my favorite games of all time.