Super Mario World

The Good
Nintendo has always had the skill to produce games that are just so good that you have to keep playing. I have played Super Mario World through 5 times in the last 5 years. OK, nowadays it goes by the memory, but it never lets me down.

Like most Super Mario games, the Super Mario World includes cute graphics and sound effects, a soundtrack that you could listen all the time and a playability that is as close to perfect as it can get. You can control Mario completely with the controller.

With all that good, you could at least have bad level design in the game. But no. SMB has over 90 different levels to play and that's a lot. It takes close to a week to play the game through for the first time. The skill levels are brilliant. It's always challenging enough to keep you from playing the game straight through, but still easy enough so that you won't get frustrated.

Another revolutionary thing is that you can keep playing the game after you have played it through. There might even be new secret levels that you haven't found yet. I happened to find a new route in my last time. I was amazed.

And then there's also the fact that you can play this game no matter how old you are. I've seen a four year old playing this game from start to finish. I've also seen an 80 year old granny playing this game. It doesn't matter. The game doesn't any violence in it, which is a very nice exception in today's world with GTA's and Carmageddons.

The Bad
Well, you could say it's too addictive... But that isn't a bad thing in my scale.

The Bottom Line
OK, the game is old. It's pure luck if you happen to hit a SNES today with the game. I have tried the emulator version of the game, and it's OK, but not as good as the original. You just can't get the feeling with a keyboard or the zillion-button gamepad you have with PC. Nor with the 15-19 inch monitor.

But if you don't mind the old(but it's still very cute and funny, it's really not THAT old) graphics, this is the ultimate run & jump game for everyone around.

GO NINTENDO!!!