Happy birthday, Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. is 25. 
Of course, lots of folks no longer remember its antecedent, just called Mario Bros., which wasn’t in the model of a “platformer” at all, though it did include platforms. 🙂
Prior to SMB, there were plenty of platformers, but they had different modalities of play:
- In the original Donkey Kong, the challenge was “get to the other side” — where the side was the top.
- In ones like Miner 2049er it was all about “painting the map” (literally, in that game’s case — you changed the color of the platforms you walked on), akin to Pac-Man in that sense.
- In others, it was about collecting objects, such as in Lode Runner (itself derived from Apple Panic) or Jumpman. This is a very different challenge from the one of hitting every spot.
- And Kangaroo is where I first saw a traditional platformer that included the notion of attacking opponents directly (DK had the hammer, but that was more in the nature of a power-up; Mario Bros. had fighting turtles in essentially the SMB mode, but that was the core gameplay activity, rather than platforming. Almost like a co-op version of Super Smash Bros. actually).
For me, a big part of the genius of SMB has always been the way in which it adopted all these variants and modified them into what has become the template for all platforming since. The sense of completeness that the “visit every spot” games encouraged became the secrets you could find. The fighting was seamlessly woven into the overall “get to the other side.” The sense of environmental modifiability of Lode Runner is present via breaking blocks. Collecting specific objects within the map became an ancillary mechanic rather than mandatory.
Perhaps most importantly, the seeds of narrative that were present and so surprising in Donkey Kong reached full flower — it was here that what we think of as the classic Nintendo universe was really born. It is easy to forget that the rather slight story in DK was a bit of a revolution at the time, when what passed for narrative was the insertion of “cutscenes” about Ms Pac-Man’s relationship in between levels — or more often, just text on the side of an arcade cabinet.
In essence, by taking all these elements, not in a literal sense, but in a functional, mechanical sense, SMB became the prototype for a “feature-complete” platform game. In a lot of ways, the games have not changed since. The addition of a third dimension didn’t change the core mechanics much, and embedding games such as occasional racing or dodge’em elements is clearly additive.
In a sense, this is a birthday for not only Super Mario Bros., but for all the platformers since, which owe it a huge design debt.
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Super Mario Bros, Tetris, Ultima Online, Pacman, Wolfenstein 3D…
They defined a new genre. I’m sure I missed a few. Civ? Warcraft? Diablo? In Super Mario Bros’ case, it was largely responsible for the initial success of the NES. It was amazing that you could have the arcade game in all its glory in your living room. You could say that the release of SMB on the NES was the beginning of the end of the arcade.
There’s a few games that belong in the rarefied air of a genre creating game. SMB certainly belongs there.
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I hadn’t heard of Kangaroo before – so thanks for that!
I bet big on Atari back in the day, both the consoles and the ST.
Oops.
all pixels to pong.;) then toss in a vector based racer/flyer shooter at objects.:)
hit of be hit… native electroid mechanics 101.;)
I bet big on Atari just before DDO. Needless to say, that part of my stock portfolio didn’t like the outcome. There’s a running theme there. Great brand name, so so history of performance as a company. Oops.
Those are different companies that happen to share a name. In fact, I believe there are currently multiple companies with the name Atari!
Atari today is… confusing. Back in the day, they pioneered the home gaming console, had utter market dominance in that arena, and had a genuine shot at the home PC market with the Atari ST, which was a better bargain than the Mac, IBM PC, or even the Amiga.
And they blew it. Worse, they blew it in such a spectacular manner that there was nobody they could blame but themselves.
NES achieved market dominance largely on the strength of Super Mario Brothers, but they were aided in no small part by Atari shooting itself in the foot with clunky, poorly-designed games that they tried to hype with weak IP tie-ins. At about the same time, the Atari ST became a historical footnote due to the IBM PC’s open architecture and Apple’s aggressive promotions targeted at the educational and artistic markets.
Atari today is nothing more than a label with some small value in terms of consumer recognition. It has no real connection with the company it once was. But considering how the historic Atari self-destructed, that’s probably a good thing.
That’s all a tangent… Nintendo worked hard for and deserved the success it achieved, and they earned the kudos they’re getting on this occasion.
someone posted a remark at cnet a day ago about nokia… that they were on their way to become like ATARI, nothing more than a logo on a hipsters retro t shirt….:)
when i think atari today all i see is that faded iron on/silk screen grey logo on a dark blue faded t-shirt…..
well, you gamerz need some sort of historical religious relics…lol
shroud of atari—c3
Iron-on-ically hip.