You were merrily hopping through a lush green garden when you notice a giant grey pipe sticking out of the ground. Always ready for some action, you leap into the pipe without a second thought. You fall into a dimly lit underground passage. As you look up, you notice the sparkling gold coins hanging in the air. You realise there are probably hundreds of them. You can barely contain your excitement as you jump to pluck as many coins from the air.
Dreams in our childhood were sometimes made of episodes such as these. All thanks to extended bouts of playing Mario on our TV screens. The adorable plump plumber turns 25 this week. However, he is as fit as ever as one would notice from his acrobatics in his latest game ‘Super Mario Galaxy 2’. Mario and his sidekicks like Wario, Lugi and Pauline have appeared in over 200 titles over these years. This is a testament to Nintendo’s vision and innovation in creating the game industry’s first Superstar.
There have been various funny variations of one of the world’s most popular game title - Super Mario Bros (240 million in lifetime sales and still selling!). One game designer’s resignation letter was a Mario game titled ‘A Message for 2K Australia’ (his employer)! A geek proposed to girlfriend inside a Mario-like video game by spelling out the words “Lisa Will You Marry Me?” using gold coins. There are several other instances of Mario fans creating a 8-bit wedding invitation game to an entire room designed after Mario’s colourful world.
There are no signs of Mario retiring atleast for the immediate future. Whatever be tomorrow’s technology be it 3D or full body motion sensors, you can expect Mario to be there and kicking some posteriors! :)
Disclaimer: Mario and all related characters and elements are copyrighted to Nintendo
