A Game From My Childhood

Many of us had played video games when we were young. These days many of the young people around, like my students, are flooded with various consoles and games. They are more familiar with games such as Dynasty Warriors, Wii Sports, Halo, World Of Warcraft, Maplestory. How many of you still remember the classic games of the 80's when video games first came about? Pong, the very first console game ever from Atari. Does anyone even knows who or what Atari is nowadays? How about the evergreen PacMan? Many an arcade centre, games room and what have you not would have had this arcade classic sitting around.

Towards the end of the 1983, the console world had a crash of epic proportions that nearly wiped it out of existence. To many people it would mean that there would be no such things as Playstation 3, XBox360, Nintendo Wii. In fact in the early 2000s, one gaming console company did finally throw in the towel and decided to concentrate on just game development. Remember the Sega Dreamcast anyone?

However, back to the 1980s, with the devastation of that era, a game had to come about to save the industry from disappearing into oblivion. That game which saved all the later day consoles was the one and only, Super Mario Brothers.


Released in September 1985 in Japan and subsequently in March of 1986 in North America, it not only saved the video-console market but it made Nintendo, a Japanese company, and the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) a main stay of the American video-gaming console market. The NES was the second console created by Nintendo and the very first console from Nintendo to be released in America and fore-father of the Nintendo Wii. To many of the people born in the 1990s, they may not be all too familiar with the game but to those born slightly earlier, it was a game that defined an era. Nobody, be it someone who played video-consoles or those who stayed away from technology, not know of the game. Even if not by name, they would know the all too familiar game tone of it. Kudos to the Mr Koji Kondo for composing the tune to the game. No game had ever come close to the popularity of Super Mario Brothers and it was only surpassed most recently in terms of sales by Wii Sports, another Nintendo classic.

Below are 4 videos I found relating to the Super Mario Brothers. The first one was from a tv program in 1988 which introduced the NES and Super Mario Brothers. The second is a clip showing a group of high-school students in America doing a "live-action" skit of the game in a talent contest. The third is a recording someone did at the performance of "Play! A Video Game Symphony" in Oslo, Norway, and it entails the Super Mario Brothers theme. "Play!" had previously performed in Singapore back in 2007 during the Singapore Arts Festival at The Esplanade Theatre and I hope for their return soon. The forth is a group from China who used bottles filled with water and a remote control car to play the Super Mario Theme.