Super Mario Bros.

The Good
It is the father of them all, little younger than I, and the first videogame I played. If I had to explain its appeal, I would put it down to colourful and tangible-looking graphics, catchy music (who can't hum the music of at least the first two levels?), great sound effects, but above all incredibly fast-paced and addictive gameplay. Whether you are climbing stairs, jumping to moving Meccano-like platforms in the underground, or swimming almost unrestricted in the underwater level, you will enjoy yourself. The mushrooms that make you grow and flowers that give you the power to shoot fireballs are nice touches.

The monsters are quite remarkable. Goombas, turtles (some with wings!), carnivorous plants... no wonder this game captivated me.

The castle levels are a treat in themselves. Bowser is pretty terrifying, there is lava, and, well, "Your princess is in another castle" has to be one of the most seminal videogame lines. Of course, everything about "Super Mario Bros." is seminal.

The learning curve is very good: the first level is simple, but in later levels, abysses and similar features increase the danger. Regularly timed platforms and monsters mean that the player needs strategic thinking as well as quick reflexes.

After winning, the player gets the option to play again from the start with slightly improved monsters, which is an excellent idea.

And of course, for me at least, this game has the indescribable glamour of being the first ever.

The Bad
Nothing is perfect, and the "Super Mario Bros." series had quite a few things to improve in subsequent issues. For example, the gameplay is very simple. The times when the player needs to think further than just "when is the right time to jump?" are thin on the ground.

The fact that you can't walk back is rather frustrating. Level design also gets a bit samey towards the end.

The Bottom Line
Chances are, if you started playing videogames in the late 1980s, you've played "Super Mario Bros." In that case, I don't need to convince you how good it is.

If you haven't, then what are you waiting for?

The Good
This game is very good for its age and is still fun to play alone or with friends(personally I liked Luigi better), and you have to save the princess, Peach. The game can get repetitive sometimes but if that happens you can always use the secret pipes or passage ways.The game is fun fighting and jumping on the enemies and the ability to run saved me a lot of times when I was running short on time. This game is good but nowhere near Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World.

The Bad
Now that I am older it really feels outdated.

The Bottom Line
Its good fun to play with friends or alone to bring back the good memories. This game changed gaming after E.T. for Atari almost killed it. I end this review with a tribute the lovable song of the first level, second, and boss levels and hum them aloud to salute Super Mario Bros.

The Good
The art direction on the first Super Mario Bros. (SMB) game was both memorable and adorable. Mushroom men, turtle troopers, fire flowers, breakable bricks, giant plumbing pipes…it all added up to something like a slightly industrial twist on “Alice in Wonderland.” And a twisted fairy tale is at the heart of this game, so that makes perfect sense. Mario was playing the role of animated anti-hero long before anyone even dreamed of Shrek!

Just as important as the art was the fabulous music. If you were to hum the overworld and underworld themes to SMB in public, the odds are good that somebody within earshot would recognize them. The sound effects were both realistic and satisfying. Smashing bricks really sounds like smashing bricks, and the happy-cool noises that accompany mushrooms, fire flowers, invincibility stars, and other goodies you find add to the simple joy of discovering them.

Of course, I would be remiss not to praise SMB for its elegant and incredibly innovative design. SMB was truly the harbinger of a new era in arcade games. Gone forever were the days of single-screen playing fields and their compressed, suffocating feel; from then on, arcade gamers would expect to scroll through an entire world of fun and fantasy. (Of course, big props must also go to David Crane’s landmark Pitfall games for pointing the industry in this direction.) Moreover, it showed that a video game world could benefit greatly by having destructible environments. Except for Asteroids and Lode Runner, I can’t think of any early action-arcade title that let you smash things up as much as SMB did.

While mostly linear, SMB still gave the player considerable freedom within that linear structure. Most levels featured hidden areas and alternate paths to victory, and “warp zone” pipes let you bypass entire worlds and advance much faster—the downside being that you couldn’t gain the extra lives and other rewards in the bypassed areas. But those warp paths were just the tip of the iceberg as far as secrets and “easter eggs” were concerned. Just when you thought you had uncovered SMB’s secrets, you’d play the game with somebody else and they’d show you something new. Magical stuff, and I can’t recall playing anything like it that preceded it.

Younger gamers might have difficulty grasping how revolutionary all of this stuff seemed back in the day, but take my word for it: video games felt vastly different after Super Mario, and this surely played a big part in reviving the industry after the great Atari bust of the early 1980s.

The Bad
No game is flawless. Even the great SMB is no exception to this rule. For one thing, it can get repetitive. That’s not uncommon for arcade games, and SMB holds up better than almost any other game of its era, but it’s still a problem. How many times did we really need to hear that our princess is in another castle? More seriously, it would have been nice if the action didn’t always have you running in the same direction. Even Link is a lefty, so how come Mario only gets to go right?

From the perspective of any mediocre platform gamer (that’s me!), SMB was a bit hard. The early levels were rather unchallenging, but from World 5 on things get significantly harder. I’ve beaten the game without cheating, but believe me, it did not come easily. For most games I’d probably say it wasn’t worth the effort. If you are struggling with this one, then I’d say that playing with a Game Genie might be a good idea. It would be sad for any dedicated retro gamer not to explore the later levels just because his reflexes aren’t quite up to the task.

Finally, a word on multiplayer. I don’t use multiplayer in most games, but I did use it quite a bit with SMB (my lucky cousins had this game long before I did). It was ok, but the sequential nature of it seemed a bit of a waste. You spent lots of time watching the other person play—especially if they were good—which could get boring fast. After the simultaneous multiplayer of Mario Bros., the IGO-HUGO of SMB seems like a bit of a step backwards. It probably wasn’t at all practical at the time, but a cooperative play mode could have been a blast.

The Bottom Line
If Super Mario Bros. had not been made, would another game have come along to save the home video game industry? Probably. Still, SMB is the game that actually DID save the industry. It still holds up well today, and so it deserves all of the accolades it gets—and more.