90% of Gamers Suck at Super Mario

[Gipper]

I still have a functioning NES....

Damn that's old school.

I like the emulators better anyway. You can save the state of the game at any time. I do it during Dragon Warrior when I get a crappy level raise.

"Ragnar only got 3 strength? *click load previous state*".

 

[OscarB63]

Damn that's old school.

I like the emulators better anyway. You can save the state of the game at any time. I do it during Dragon Warrior when I get a crappy level raise.

"Ragnar only got 3 strength? *click load previous state*".

my oldest son plays lots of old school games on emulators. I just don't have that much free time.

 

[Helix]

Yup I remember that. By the time it started getting into symbols, you stopped looking at how many lives you had left.

I had a subscription to Nintendo Power for years. Read all sorts of cheats/tips, and even submitted my own that I found out by accident along the way. Most of the Japanese games had some sort of button pattern you could do for enhanced results. One tip I submitted but never made the magazine (and never saw it posted by anyone else either) was how to control the clock in Nintendo World Cup to play halves of desired length (as opposed to 5 minutes every time).

I still play my NES/SNES emulators from time to time, mostly for the Dragon Warrior series (1-4), the Final Fantasy series (1-5), and Romance of the Three Kingdoms (1-4).

yep, i subscribed, too.

i waited like two months for them to deliver the Nintendo Player's Guide. man, when that thing arrived, i was the most excited kid in the world.

 

[Gipper]

yep, i subscribed, too.

i waited like two months for them to deliver the Nintendo Player's Guide. man, when that thing arrived, i was the most excited kid in the world.

View attachment 67150180

I used to take that to school and read it at recess.

 

[Gathomas88]

Except not every person who plays a game wants to be challenged mentally. Many of us turn a game on to turn off our brain, to get away from life and using our brain all the time. When I play a game, I want to play, I don't want to work. Playing a game for me is when I turn my brain off.

Quite honestly, I cannot fathom why people want to actually work at something which is little more than a time waster. When you finish beating a video game (let's say Uncharted), in what way have you improved your life? None. So why work at something which holds no real value? I can work all day, mentally and physically but when it comes time to relax, I just want to shut my brain off. That's why games exist which aren't hard for the sake of being hard.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with that. I can certainly understand the desire to play something mindless and minimally distracting after a long day at work or school. I've felt the same way myself on plenty of occasions.

My complaint is that the entire industry seems to be headed in that direction, and overall quality is suffering for it in many regards.

Think of it in terms of something like the movie industry. Decent thought provoking movies have become a rarity in recent decades because studios figure that audiences are too dumb to handle them. Not only is this unfortunate because we know damn well that they are capable of better, but it's also a bit of a rip off because the ever more pervasive trend in the industry is to over-charge audiences for the subpar drek that they do produce.

I mean... Transformers is fine and all, but I'm occasionally in the mood for something more like Schindler's List as well. :lol:

It's really no different with gaming. The medium is capable of telling some truly great stories. There's really no reason why it should be perpetually mired in lazy infantile crap.

Frankly, as far as the whole video games are a "waste of time" argument goes, you could just as easily lay the same claim against any other medium presently out there. Are eight hours reading a book or listening to music really any more productive than eight hours spent playing an interactive game on a computer or console, when you get to bottom of things?

Should all books be poorly written pulp, or all music trashy pop, because of this fact?

 

[Gipper]

Games have to be somewhat challenging. Nobody with an intellect worth mentioning would be good with playing pong for hours.

 

[What if...?]

Games have to be somewhat challenging. Nobody with an intellect worth mentioning would be good with playing pong for hours.

Yeah, once you can play both sides by yourself on highest difficulty for an indefinite time, what else is there?

 

[Superfly]

IIRC there were codes or something so you could restart from certain points in the game but you did not get the code until you had cleared the level or someone gave it to you. I know you did not have to start at the very beginning every time and there were portals that allowed you to skip levels.

Yeah you can skip from, I think, 1:2 to 4:1, and 4:2 to 8:1. I think. I have it on my Virtual Wii but haven't played it in a long time.

I preferred the older RPGs on NES and SNES, like Wizards and Warriors, and W&W2, the Zeldas, etc.

 

[Superfly]

I wonder how many of them could figure out when to jump on the turtle at the end of 3-1. Infinite lives, mother****ers.

In Super Mario World, there's a spot in the forest that, if you are wearing a cape, you can "spin" and hit the flying turtle, and bounce the turtle off your cape, and get tons of lives. I've gotten the maximum doing that (not all at once, you can usually only get about 40 or 50 at a time before you reach the end of the level).

When I play SMW, I usually play to get all 96 levels, and then I'm as likely as not, to go after Bowser. I've beat him a million times, so I know I can do it, but in that game, there are a few levels that are even harder to beat than the final battle, so I don't even bother after 96.

 

[Gipper]

Yeah, once you can play both sides by yourself on highest difficulty for an indefinite time, what else is there?

Anyone who gets that good at it either has Jedi reflexes, or way too much time on their hands.

 

[Gipper]

In Super Mario World, there's a spot in the forest that, if you are wearing a cape, you can "spin" and hit the flying turtle, and bounce the turtle off your cape, and get tons of lives. I've gotten the maximum doing that (not all at once, you can usually only get about 40 or 50 at a time before you reach the end of the level).

When I play SMW, I usually play to get all 96 levels, and then I'm as likely as not, to go after Bowser. I've beat him a million times, so I know I can do it, but in that game, there are a few levels that are even harder to beat than the final battle, so I don't even bother after 96.

Even the secret star world? *gasp*

 

[Superfly]

I have an old NES and SNES in my garage (unless Hubs has tossed them - he's a new gamer with a 360 and a PS3, so he doesn't understand the love affair I've had for the last 25 years with my NES and SNES), with all my old cartridges, but I play an emulator, because yeah, I like being able to save anywhere. That's so much better.

I LOVE playing old Dragon Warrior. I've played most all of the older Final Fantasys, Dragon Warriors, the first 3 Zeldas. I have played both 1st and 2nd quests of Zelda 1.

I love those old school games.

 

[Superfly]

Even the secret star world? *gasp*

Hell yeah. Except for "tubular." That's one of those levels that I just can't beat. I have to get my 15 year old daughter to beat that one level for me. That's the only level that I just can't beat. But yeah, I've gotten to the brown version many times.

 

[What if...?]

Anyone who gets that good at it either has Jedi reflexes, or way too much time on their hands.

I was a kid, dad got it when it came out at Sears, i was a sickly, bespectacled Jehovahs Witness.

You do the math.

I'm also functionally ambidextrous. Can't do things well with my left that require practise, but am as likely to do two handed things "left handed" as "right handed". A couple teachers encouraged me to learn to write both ways, but I never did

 

[Gipper]

I was a kid, dad got it when it came out at Sears, i was a sickly, bespectacled Jehovahs Witness.

You do the math.

I'm also functionally ambidextrous. Can't do things well with my left that require practise, but am as likely to do two handed things "left handed" as "right handed". A couple teachers encouraged me to learn to write both ways, but I never did

There are about 20 jokes and smartass comments, potentially, in this post.

 

[What if...?]

There are about 20 jokes and smartass comments, potentially, in this post.

All funny 'cuz they're true!

 

[Slyfox696]

There's nothing necessarily wrong with that. I can certainly understand the desire to play something mindless and minimally distracting after a long day at work or school. I've felt the same way myself on plenty of occasions.

My complaint is that the entire industry seems to be headed in that direction, and overall quality is suffering for it in many regards.

I understand what you're saying. I have laments about the fact the game industry seems to be going the route of making sure everyone in the world has to be involved in whatever game you're playing. I don't care for it one bit.

But I do understand it. I understand why it's going that way. So I just limit my game purchases to those who offer a robust single player mode...like Skyrim, for example, a game you insulted earlier.

Frankly, as far as the whole video games are a "waste of time" argument goes, you could just as easily lay the same claim against any other medium presently out there. Are eight hours reading a book or listening to music really any more productive than eight hours spent playing an interactive game on a computer or console, when you get to bottom of things?

Uhh...yes. Without question.

Reading a book improves both your ability to read and your vocabulary, two skills which are highly valuable in the world. Multiple studies have shown the effects music can have on the development of thought and can possibly improve overall health.

So yes, both reading and listening to music serve real purposes. To the best of my knowledge, the only alleged life benefit (one which is still highly questionable) to video games is improvement in hand eye coordination (there may be others, I've not researched this very thoroughly). But even if we grant the idea of hand-eye coordination as being a benefit to video games, that skill is going to be improved regardless of the difficulty or mental processing necessary to play the game.

Games have to be somewhat challenging. Nobody with an intellect worth mentioning would be good with playing pong for hours.

I think I'd have to wonder about those who look for games they play for hours...

 

[Gathomas88]

like Skyrim, for example, a game you insulted earlier.

Whoa now. I'm as big a Skyrim fan as anybody. I've logged more than 200 hours into the game since it was released.

I was simply saying that the puzzles sucked. If you're literally going to put the answer right in front of the player's face, why bother having puzzles at all?

You can also hardly deny that the game mechanics have been dumbed down quite a bit since Morrowind.

It was possible to become a literal god in Morrowind if you knew how to properly craft spells. Recreating anything even remotely like that level of freedom in Skyrim require would require extensive modding.

Skyrim is certainly a step in the right direction when compared to the utterly "bleh" gameplay that Oblivion introduced, but there are still a lot of aspects of the earlier games that I'd like to see returned to the franchise.

Uhh...yes. Without question.

Reading a book improves both your ability to read and your vocabulary, two skills which are highly valuable in the world. Multiple studies have shown the effects music can have on the development of thought and can possibly improve overall health.

And video games improve hand-eye coordination and spatial reasoning. They also have more or less the same cathartic effect that music does.

So yes, both reading and listening to music serve real purposes. To the best of my knowledge, the only alleged life benefit (one which is still highly questionable) to video games is improvement in hand eye coordination (there may be others, I've not researched this very thoroughly). But even if we grant the idea of hand-eye coordination as being a benefit to video games, that skill is going to be improved regardless of the difficulty or mental processing necessary to play the game.

Strategy games improve organizational skills and non-linear thinking. They can also be surprisingly educational.

For instance, basically the only reason I have any knowledge of Balkan or Eastern European geography and history whatsoever is because I had an absolute bitch of a time conquering those territories during my first play through of Medieval 2 Total War and it prompted me to look them up on Wikipedia afterwards.

Likewise, well written games can present dilemmas that force the player to question their own morality and strength of character.

I'm currently playing Spec Ops: The Line (basically a video game adaptation of Heart of Darkness). So far, I've had to face some pretty genuinely tough choices.

i.e.

Do you save the civilians first, or do you save the person who might possibly be carrying valuable intelligence? They've both got guns to their heads, and it isn't possible to save both.

Do you leave the murderous psychopath who just doomed an entire city to death by thirst to burn to death under a pile of flaming wreckage, or do you put him out of his misery with a well aimed .44 to the head?

In many ways, this kind of subject matter can actually be explored more effectively in videogame form than by literature, film, or music, simply because videogames put you in direct control of the choices being made by the characters driving the plot. They are simply much more immersive and tend to invest their audience to a significantly greater degree.

I think I'd have to wonder about those who look for games they play for hours...

If its a slow day and you've got nothing better to do, why not? :shrug: