New Generation on the Super Nintendo

(Related to Friday’s post.) At the game store, my boys got interested in some water-sports game on some unknown-to-me console system. But I spotted old-school Super Mario Bros. on another monitor, so I gravitated over to it.

The first few tries I made at the old game showed that I’d lost any skills I once might have had with it. I just right sucked at it. But after a few minutes, and about half a dozen deaths, I managed to make my way in the world. Soon Calfgrit7 (he turned 8 yesterday, but that’s another post, tomorrow) noticed my game and left his little brother to float around in the water game.

CG7 asked to play and I let him. I told him the object of the game and how the controller worked, and he took right into it. It took him less time to get the hang of the game than it did me to get back into the hang. He was stomping Goombas and Koopa Troopas left and right.

Once I saw how impressed he was with the old game, I told him that I had this game at home. He was immediately interested. “Really!? Can we play it!?”

So when we got home that night, after baths were finished and pajamas were on, I took out my old Super Nintendo and plugged it into our TV. I was mistaken when I told CG7 I had Super Mario Bros. I have Super Mario Kart — but that’s even better for our situation. With SMK, both boys can play at the same time instead of waiting for turns.

I explained the game and controls to both boys and let them loose on the first basic race track. They *loved* it! At first, though, CG7 was frustrated with figuring out how to drive the karts on the track. He moaned and complained “Why can’t I get off this wall? Why am I going the wrong way?”

I got him to calm down for a moment and said, “Now think about it for a moment. There’s no hurry for you — Calfgrit4 is just going in circles — so take your time and think about how to work the controls.”

He took a big breath and calmed down. Within a few more seconds he had it figured out and was racing. Of course, he was just racing himself, as CG4 continued his circling the starting line.

I let them play two races — CG7 won both, of course — and then I took over for CG4. I won the next two races, easily, but not without having to try. CG7 knew what he was doing by then, and if I started screwing around on the track, he’d pass me and I had to work to get ahead again.

I gave the controller back to CG4 who again lost a race. But it didn’t matter to him that CG7 was running circles around him, (as he ran circles around himself), he just liked controlling the character on the screen.

By the way, Calfgrit7 likes Donkey Kong, and Calfgrit4 likes Luigi. We all three had a ball with this old game for over half an hour. Afterwards they made me promise we’d play it again sometime soon.

The play of the game holds up well after all this time — originally produced in 1992 — but the graphics are absolutely abysmal by today’s standards. It’s really shocking to go from any modern console or computer game and then watch this thing. It’s amazing what our minds ignore or fill in with the old, simple graphics of the old games.

When I’ve always thought back on these games, I can picture in my mind’s eye, vivid details and smooth colors. Looking at Mario Kart on the Wii doesn’t look different than what I remember, in my mind’s eye, of the Super version. But actually looking at the 1992 graphics, wow, nostalgia paints a much more beautiful and detailed image than reality.

But that’s the technology we had in the day. And still, the game play was and still is superb. I’m looking forward to playing this some more with my boys. By the end of our half hour of play time, I had just started introducing the special abilities — shells, banana peels, speed mushrooms, etc. — so our next races should be even more exciting.

Bullgrit