Showing posts with label Donkey Kong Franchise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Donkey Kong Franchise. Show all posts

The Evolution Of Mario In All Of The Super Mario/Mario Bros. Games

Like all great things, if you follow it from the beginning, you get the opportunity to see what ever endeavor you are engaged in flourish from the beginning, and see it grow, and evolve... And so I thought that you guys would enjoy the evolution of, 'Mario' as seen in the various, 'Super Mario Bros./Mario Bros.' Games!

Donkey Kong.

Mario in his first ever appearance in the original, 'Donkey Kong'!
Now you might be wondering why I have worked Donkey Kong in to the equation... Well, it may not technically be a, 'Mario Bros' game so to speak... But this game is the first game ever to introduce the character.

Mario Bros.


Mario before he became the man everyone Nintendo fan knows and loves!
Now here is an interesting one, this Mario is from before he was on, 'Nintendo' in, 'Super Mario Bros.', He had a one hit wonder on the Atari 2600 and Atari 5200 with, 'Mario Bros.'

Super Mario Bros.


Mario from, 'Super Mario Bros.'
The Mario us old timers have come to know and love!

Super Mario Bros 2.

It looks like Mario is getting a little clearer in, 'Super Mario Bros 2'
In Super Mario Bros 2, we begin to see Mario become a little bit more defined, and a little bit more like a real person.

Super Mario Bros 3.

In Super Mario Bros 3, we see that Mario is able to pick from more options of super powers he can gain.
In Super Mario Bros 3, Mario and his crew are given more super powers... Including the ability to fly with his raccoon suite!

Super Mario World.


Mario really wants that level up!
Super Mario World would see the transition for Mario and the rest of his gang from the NES to the SNES.

Super Mario 64.


Yikes!
Super Mario 64 would see another transition for Mario and his crew, from the SNES to the Nintendo 64.

Super Mario Sunshine.


Whose up for a little sunshine?
An odd name, but it looks like this game would bring Mario in to the Nintendo Game Cube... As a first person shooter?

New Super Mario Bros.

The Bros are back!
New Super Mario Bros would bring Mario in to the world of both the Nintendo DS and the Nintendo Wii!

Super Mario Galaxy.

That is a big ball!
 This would see Mario in a whole new adventure on the Wii!

It's so awesome that they brought back the raccoon suite!
In Super Mario 3D Land we get to see Mario on his next big adventure on the Nintendo DS in the second 3D platform to grace the portable system!

New Super Mario Bros. U

A new suite? 
This is one I thought I would put up because in all honesty, it is one of the newest, and it does show Mario with a new suite!

Super Mario 3D World


Almost got it... Almost got it...
Now Super Mario 3D World I thought that I would mention here because between the first time Mario is ever seen, and this one, the change is absolutely amazing!

I will be honest with you guys and say that I have skipped a few games... But to be honest, in the evolutionary sense of what we have been working toward, those games would not have really given you something new... This here should give you a clear look at Mario's humble beginnings to where he is now!

Donkey Kong (1981) - Video Game Review

[caption id="attachment_385" align="alignright" width="300"]Official Score = 2 Devils Official Score = 2 Devils[/caption]

When I was a kid there was a couple of small, 'mini-mart' style stores over by where a friend of mine used to live, and in these stores were a couple of coin-op arcade games... Also there was an arcade close by as well, so one of the things that we used to like to do is to grab as much money from our mom's that we could and then circulate between the stores and play at the arcades... And you know what? If you haven't tried an arcade game, then you don't know what you are missing!

As a matter of fact, I would go so far as to say that a fair amount of video games that I would eventually play on a home console system in the late 1980s through the mid 1990s, I started off playing on an arcade system system some where! Including, Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros., and heck even, Street Fighter 2!

And another one is, Donkey Kong (1981)!

Now Donkey Kong was created by Shigeru Miyamoto who was tasked by Nintendo to convert an older game called, 'Radar Scope' which had done poorly, but Nintendo was interested in converting it with the intention of creating a game that Americans would really enjoy... And you know what? It ended up being one of the more popular Nintendo Arcade games of it's time!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="299"] Jumpman (Mario) as he is trying to rescue his girl friend, 'The Lady' (Pauline) from Donkey Kong![/caption]

The game itself is one of the earliest known video games to have a story and tells of how Donkey Kong (A large Gorilla) has kidnapped Jumpman's (A character that would later be re-named, 'Mario' and would become the lead character in one of Nintendo's most famous video game series,) girlfriend, 'The Lady' (later known as, 'Pauline'.) And since you play as Jumpman you have to go from level to level jumping over and avoiding stuff that is being rained down on you from Donkey Kong!

I have played this game on both the Arcade game setup as well as on the NES, and in all truth, on both Video Game setups, the game play was extremely easy, the music was so-so, but in all truth, considering the age of the game, the graphics was actually quite good!

This game would later be put on such gaming consoles as, the Game & Watch multiscreen, the Amiga 500, Apple II, Atari 7800, Intellivision, Commodore 64, Commodore VIC-20, Famicom Disk System, IBM PC booter, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, MSX, Atari 8-bit family and Mini-Arcade versions, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). the GameCube and as an item for purchase on the Wii's Virtual Console. The original arcade version of the game appears in the Nintendo 64 game Donkey Kong 64. Nintendo released the NES version on the e-Reader and for the Game Boy Advance Classic NES series in 2002 and 2004,

Also in 1994, a remake of the original game was released for the Game Boy, adding 96 new levels.

The truth is, is that this game was a lot of fun at the arcade, you know when you were a kid and you were waiting for your Pizza to arrive and your mom gave you a couple of dollars, to play some games...Well playing this game in that type of set up in all truth was an awful lot of fun! But I can't say for all systems, but in all truth, something was definitely lost in translation between the arcade game and the version on the NES!

http://youtu.be/EhFV5-qbbIw

2 D Games: Why They Still Rock!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600"] 'Golden Axe' (1989)... A classic awesome 2 D Video Game![/caption]

If you were born really before about 1992 then the chances are that you probably started off your Video Game playing, playing such classic 2 D video games as, Super Mario Bros. (1985), Contra (1987), or even Sonic The Hedgehog (1991)...  And you know what? Having gotten my start in this style of video games, I have found that I still think that this style of gaming freaking rocks!

Now don't get me wrong, the modern style of gaming is awesome... I mean you really can't go wrong with a video game that is getting closer to being like an interactive movie! But you really can't go wrong with a 2 D game!

The classic 2 D Games were an awful lot of fun... And in some ways I think they brought an element that is missing to the more modern 3 dimensional games of the modern time!

What I mean by this is the fact that a lot of the older games didn't have the option to save (and even with the ones that did have the option to save), there was always something about the progress that was made in the game that made you really look forward to the next level, (or in the case of an RPG. trying to find out what was next in the game)... As a matter of fact, one of my favorite games for the NES that I absolutely loved was, Bionic Commando (1988), and since this game did not have the option to save, and I was so far in to the game that I actually ended up leaving my Nintendo on all night and turning off the TV so that I can continue on with my progress when I woke up in the morning!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="320"] 'Bionic Commando' (1987)... A truly awesome 2 D video game for the NES![/caption]

Another thing that I feel still makes this style of gamming really awesome is the fact that the majority of the video game systems that used this system for it's more recently released video games... As well as the more recently re-released video games for some of the more recent video game systems, is that the game play was not exceptionally difficult, and made getting in to these games quicker  and easier, and in some cases getting to the entertainment a little bit quicker!

And yet another thing that I thought that I I would mention here is the fact that the story lines for these games were pretty awesome, and are story lines that helped spawned such legendary franchises as, the 'Donkey Kong series', the 'Super Mario Bros. series', 'The Legend Of Zelda series', and even the, 'Sonic The Hedgehog series' to name a few!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Liu Kang and Sub-Zero in 'Mortal Kombat 2' (1993), a classic 2 D fighting game for the Sega Genesis![/caption]

And yet even another thing that I thought that I would mention here is the fact that, computer generated music may not be a big thing to most, but the truth is, is I have found that the music for these games are still really quite awesome!

And the last thing that I thought that I would mention here is the fact that the other reason why these types of games are freakin awesome is the fact that they are historic, and show the amazing jumps in progress from where video games started off, to the modern X-Box 360 style games!

http://youtu.be/3qAPbXNq0dc

http://youtu.be/bh1BSyJGtOA

http://youtu.be/wh8iJLTH2qg