61 Frames Per Second : super mario 2

WTFriday: 20/20 from 20 Years Ago Copes With Nintendo

Bob Mackey — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week.

It's always fun to take a trip back in time and see the media's reaction to something new back when it wasn't as innocuous as it is today. Case in point: ABC news magazine 20/20's 1988 investigative piece, "Nuts for Nintendo," where a youngish John Stossel grows unreasonably cranky at the concept of a childlike sense of wonder.

Part 1

Part 2

But despite Stossel's inescapable Andy Rooneyish narration, he ends up at a generally positive conclusion; the segment starts off with a real "These fucking kids and their Nintendos" sentiment, but ends with a declaration of the console's harmlessness. And I can take consolation in the fact that Wendy Stapen's children either disowned their mother or grew up to become huge libertarian douchbags like John Stossel. Nice parenting, Wendy.

The only thing that bothers me about this report Stossel's lack of fact-checking: he mistakenly labels Sub-Con as The Mushroom Kingdom, and claims that Mario fights "ducks." Ducks. Crap like that would send me into conniption fits as a child. But I guess 20/20 wasn't worried about their 8-and-under demographic.

Related Links:

WTFriday: Birdo's Gender Confirmed?
WTFriday: FMV Hell
Video Game TV: Can It Ever Be Good?

WTFriday: Birdo's Gender Confirmed?

Bob Mackey — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games get you to laugh at it until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week.

One of the lingering question in the world of video games for the past 20 years has been "What the hell's up with Birdo?" He/she has basically been Nintendo's version of It's Pat, bewildering us all, challenging our concepts of gender, and perhaps breaking Yoshi's heart in some depraved reptile version of The Crying Game. Known as"Catherine" in Japan, I've always assumed that Birdo's biography was a victim of Nintendo's "make shit up" policy when it came to writing manuals. UNTIL TODAY.

In case you don't have the 20 year-old booklet immediately available, here's what the US instructions for Super Mario Bros. 2 have to say about Birdo:

"[Birdo] thinks he is a girl and likes to be called Birdetta. He likes to wear a bow on his head and shoot eggs from his mouth."

Yet, according to the Super Mario Wiki, the Japanese manual for Super Mario USA (the other Japanese version of the game) says pretty much the same thing. I'm going to go ahead and trust these people since they wrote 5000 words about Birdo.

This statement applies to all translations of the title, including the Japanese version. In Japan, Catherine is male as well, and likes to believe that he is female. Like Birdo, he likes to be called Cathy as opposed to his real name, Catherine. Birdo's masculinity is also part of contemporary canon in Japan, but it appears to have been retconned in the west save for sly references here and there.

Don't think that means we can close the book on Birdo's gender once and for all; recent reports about the Japanese Wii game Captain Rainbow--in which Birdo plays a prominent role--have complicated matters further. On Wired's Game|Life, Chris Kohler explains an in-game mission where you bust Birdo out of jail--and also why this game will never, ever come out in America:

The officer throws [Birdo] in jail for using the ladies' room when he's clearly a man. Birdo asks you to go to his/her house and find "evidence that I'm a woman." So you do. This is how it happens. As you walk into Birdo's bedroom, you hear... a buzzing. The pillow on her bed is vibrating and buzzing. You walk up to it, and Captain Rainbow looks under the pillow to find... an item that's censored out on the screen. It's covered up with a question mark. "Proof that the owner is a woman," it says, leaving it at that.

So you bring what is in all likelihood Birdo's vibrator back to the police robot, who accepts it, whatever it may be, as prima facie evidence that Birdo is a chick.

While you're pondering the gender and sex toy preference of Birdo this weekend, stare at the following freaks. You'll be glad you did.

Related Links:

WTFriday: FMV Hell
The Ten Most Adventurous Sequels in Gaming History, Part 1
Mario Will Not Retire. He Will Outlive Us All.

Mario Will Not Retire. He Will Outlive Us All.

Nadia Oxford — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 02:05:00 GMT

Growing up, we all kind of hated the rich kid. Even if he was the sweetest child in the world who only wanted to share his toys and candy and have us come over and play in his hedge maze (remember that episode of Care Bears? If not, silly me, I just made up another euphemism for sex), we'd lapse into an uncomfortable, cringing silence around him, like dogs in the presence of an alpha. When he wasn't around, we'd seethe and hiss in his direction.

There are gamers in this world who are similarly intimidated by the existence of our hairy king, Mario. He benevolently brought many of us into this glorious, mind-gelling hobby. He has walked, run and jumped with us since we were children. Thanks to Mushroom Kingdom logic, we have baffled our teachers with adamant declarations about raccoons flying and fireballs bouncing underwater. Just last year, we soared through space with our magic plumber and visited more fantastic planes than the Little Prince.

Mario is grand. And that's why the latest Internet fad, in which bloggers call for his retirement, is impotent and sad.

I'm still unsure who first decided to make the ill declaration; likely someone desperate to crown himself King Controversy. This time, freelancer Patrick Goss takes the throne and gives us his reasons why Mario should give it all up and open a spaghetti farm.

The article is admittedly well-written and free from the venom that usually shoots from the mouths of message board trolls who feel qualified to look down on Shigeru Miyamoto. Still, I feel obligated to counter.

I don't feel like Mario needs to “bow out gracefully.” The Mario games are not a television series being torn apart by epic writer fights and demands for more money. We receive one, maybe two Mario games per console generation, with the NES being the obvious exception. Each title is invariably well-received and loved. In the interest of not starting a war, I'm not going to say too much about Super Mario Blacksheep--er, Sunshine.

Goss mentions Disney, which doesn't manufacture much in the way of Mickey Mouse cartoons lately and instead has moved on to other properties. He's right. Be sure to catch The Little Mermaid XXVII: Ariel's Hysterectomy, available on DVD this summer.

The thesis of Goss' article argues that Mario is in danger of being taken for granted or becoming passe. There was a time when Mario was passe; he choked desperately on Sonic the Hedgehog's wake. We all left him behind to go play with Sega's new pet. When it slowly became obvious that Sonic had rabies, Mario was waiting for us. We were sheepish, but we had learned a lesson. Oh God, did we learn a lesson.

Mario was every kid's hero when I was growing up and he remains a hero to young kids. If you think any differently, visit a game store and watch the kids pore over him and chatter about their own experiences in the same excited way we talked about Super Mario 2 and its successors. There's nothing to be gained from taking that away from them.

Related Links:

Super Mario World is Terrifying!
WiiWare: Nintendo, Babe, it Just Isn't Working Out
So I Hear Folks Are Upset With Nintendo