Category: Mario

Mario

Paper Mario may not be dead and buried just yet

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Paper Mario: The Origami King (2020)

I’m going to give you a fair advance warning on this one – this is going to get a bit depressive. Have you ever had to lift a coffin? I’m not sure if I’d go so far as saying that I’d rather be lying in the damn thing than carrying it, but I have to say, with all due respect, it’s one heavy bugger of a burden to bear.

I’ve had to carry a coffin before, although I’m being a bit generous to myself there because I basically contributed nothing to the lift at all, and it ain’t like we were burying Marlon Brando. I’m just wondering why they have to nail those things so firmly shut – I’m as proactive against zombie apocalyptic doom as the next person, but we ain’t expecting Thriller to play out some day, are we?

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So it may cost you a phone – who cares? Toga! Toga!

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Mario Party 4 (2002) NOTX

I spend most of my time trying to be superior, the best out there at everything, especially the petty things. I was looking down at the missus’s phone, for example, and I was surprised to learn that there was a screen there, underneath the spider’s web of cracks and severe chunks that had been blown clean out of the protective glass. “Ah, I just keep dropping it,” she says offhandedly.

Now, this came at great risk to my testicular health. But here I had the chance to be superior and lord it over her about two things – firstly, I have never shattered my phone screen, because I’m so great and all that. I’ve even dropped my phones a few dozen times on hard floors over the years, and that’s without any of those cases you see the boomers using. I don’t need a case either, I just don’t bother dropping my phone so much, and it’s fine as a result.

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Mario sleepwalks us through another money-printing cookie cutter

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New Super Mario Bros. 2 (2012)

I’m trying to remember the last time I put absolutely no effort into something, but I couldn’t be bothered engaging my memory for long enough to uncover it. I think you can already tell where I’m going with this piece, but I will say, it’s a wonderful feeling when you go past caring and just decided to drop out completely.

I had that with college, you know, and it was really just a natural progression. The timetable they gave me was something ridiculous like only 11 hours a week, which I took as licence not to turn up at all. After all, the less teaching hours there are, the easier it is to cram. We’d get to exam time and I’d see all these triers and achievers stressing out like crazy. I never really liked the feeling of being stressed, so I just never bothered putting myself under any of it. Besides, I don’t think colleges can fail you anyway, so long as you turn up on the last day. Turning up was, after all, the bare minimum, and I’m always happy to do the bare minimum.

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Not every game on the Wii is an eyesore, y’know

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Super Paper Mario (2007)

In your best Michael Caine voice, repeat after me – I wear eyeglasses, spectacles. Not a lot of people know that. But it’s true, and I know a lot of people will sympathise with me on this, but I’ve always felt that I look a bit of a dweebenheimer, or a bit of a prat indeed, wearing my glasses. I’m usually a form over fashion type of guy, but vanity and self-consciousness trumps all.

For this reason, I’ve always been perfectly happy to go out in public without my glasses, which essentially meant I’ve never been able to see anyone else’s face. And that really is a small price to pay; so long as I continue looking good, a bit of social embarrassment is always worth it.

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Live the life of a raccoon, this time in fuzzy 3D

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Super Mario 3D Land (2011)

I think we’re all prone to those most dastardly bursts of motivation that strike every so often. You’ll just be sat there, another completely listless, fruitless, pointless day, when you suddenly realise that you are wasting your life and you won’t get another. This could frighten even the most inert sloth into action, and these moments can be triggered by all kinds of menacing sources. These days, you usually get jolted by social media, but that’s something I avoid as much as possible these days so as not to have it rubbed in my face by the Joneses – I suggest you do likewise.

It’s our pesky brains that are to blame, I’m sure of it, secreting some miserable hormone that makes us hate ourselves for not having achieved anything that day. We shouldn’t worry though; I imagine by the time we all hit 40, we’ll realise that, whatever we wanted out of life, it’s not gonna happen for us and we can just become a husk until we’re gracefully told to retire, and go off and die like an old dog.

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It’s the same old story – when it’s a mobile game, it’s time to run, run, run

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Super Mario Run (2016)

Let it be known – I am all about McDonald’s. Oh sure, if you’re in polite company and you want to appear like you’re not a total oik, then you might feel the social need to write off McDonald’s in public. But you should resist that temptation. McDonald’s is great, and if there’s any Maccy-D’s decrier out there who disagrees with me, then I’d challenge them to join me for a fest of 20 Chicken Nuggets, whether they’re drunk or not, and we’ll see if they still think the company is a wash. Just don’t tell them where the nuggets come from though, if they should ask. Eating chicken meat from the wing, thigh or breast is fine. From the floor or the slopbucket, not so much.

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Frenzy on the freeway, it’s a good Mario game spoiled

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Mario Golf (1999)

There’s only one thing that golf fanatics like me are after, of course, and that’s the coveted green jacket you get for winning the Masters. So listen up, prole, here’s how you do it.

Right, first hole, par 4, the green is 350 yards away which is a few football pitches, and you’re not sure you could even walk that distance unassisted.

But no matter because you’ve got your caddy alongside you, who will helpfully double as a chauffeur to bring you around on one of those nifty golf carts. Your first job is to drive the ball as much as possible, which of course means using your driver. You might at this point attempt to grab your caddy by the ankles, walk him towards the first tee, wheelbarrow style, and use him as a club to strike the ball with. After all, he’s your driver, right?

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Looking for a puzzler on the go? Just take your Pic

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Mario’s Picross (1995) NOTX

You know you’re getting pretty goshdarned by-gum old when you’re getting a bit excited by puzzles. I’ve been well into the cryptic crosswords lately, the easy ones of course. My brain nearly melted right out of my ears the last time I tried to tackle a Guardian cryptic. Talk about hard, just how many viagras can you stuff down a crossword puzzle’s throat? Enough to give it a stiff neck, that’s what.

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I’m the best penalty taker in the world… on paper

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Paper Mario (2001)

So, do you have a happiest memory in your life? Maybe I’m just depressed, but for me, it’s harder than one might think to come up with memories or days that stick out as being overwhelmingly happy ones. I know we’re supposed to say our wedding days, or the day we graduated from college or something. Or the moment we lost our virginity. But what sticks out ahead of all these is usually a particularly great night out with all your pals present – or even better, a pizza fuelled house party where everyone’s there.

Harry Potter enthusiasts will know that the method of combating the Dementor creatures is to conjure up a very happy memory, and somehow turn that memory into a spirit animal that chases the shadowy demons of depression away. I remember reading that and thinking that I’d be bang in trouble if I ever needed to do that. Ask yourself, what moment would you draw from?

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Could it have all gone differently for Brazil, if they’d had Wario up front…?

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Mario Strikers Charged Football (2007)

I have my own theory on football obsession, or soccer to you sceptic Septics. Being crazy into football when you’re a young kid and teenager is absolutely no problem at all, it’s quite understandable. And even as you get longer in the tooth, football is always handy as a universal men’s language, something to awkwardly discuss at surface level with the other henpecked dads at the next kid’s birthday party you both get bullied into attending.

I must say though, and here’s my theory – if you’re over the age of say, 20 or 21, and you’re still obsessed with football, to the point that your team getting a bad result ruins your entire weekend, then I’m sorry, but this is an admittance that you have absolutely no sex life. After all, there’s better things to be doing of a Saturday and Sunday. And let’s face it, you’re probably a plastic supporter of a mega-club anyway, which means you might as well be watching the share price battle between Coca-Cola versus Pepsi – and at least those two don’t change their ingredients every six months.

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