Remember when video games were not the scapegoat for violence and murder? When video games where fun for the whole family, toys for kids to enjoy. It was a simpler time, a kinder time, it was around 1988.

Here’s an Inside Edition piece from back in ’88 with Howard Phillips on the Nintendo craze that was taking over the US.

Always remember, you are the Mario brothers and don’t you forget to state that next time you commit a violent crime obviously inspired by video games.

Ah, our trusty plumber. Is there nothing he cannot do? First we had levels that play themselves. Now we have levels that play themselves, and also create music while doing so. Pretty damn impressive, or someone’s got waaaaay too much time on their hands. Either way, enjoy this fine music from our friends at nicovideo and youtube.

[tag] mario, music, automatic, nicovideo[/tag][youtube][nicovideo]

Nachimir, an instructables user, made these awesome 1up cupcakes with green frosting and white chocolate. You can check out the easy instructions on how to make your own 1up cupcakes here. Be advised though that excessive consumption will probably lead to death by diabetes before immortality.

[Instructables]

Ever wondered why Nintendo never goes for photorealism? Well the picture above might just be your answer. Pixeloo brings us this photorealistic rendition of our beloved Mario and its outright creepy! The gray stubble, the tired eyes, the sad look. This is one old, jaded plumber we’ve got here. I guess the burden of a loved one who’s always being kidnapped (and never giving Mario any) and his hardcore shroom addiction don’t do his health any good.

[Pixeloo]

Here’s a little something Velcor found today, but since he’s on assignment I’ll be the one posting it. Found on IIchan’s crossover board is this pretty damn cool Super Smash Brothers Brawl manga drawn in the famous style of Kohta Hirano, creator of Hellsing, its pretty badass.

Hirano is famous for his overtly dramatic, and quite surreal, poses along with chaos-loving monologues that just ooze out mettle! If this doesn’t pump up your blood for some SSBB or some mad vampire action then you just might be already dead, and not the cool un-dead king. Do you want more Machiavellian Mario? Check out the full doujinshi below.

Lets go, Gentlemen!

Students of Denmark’s IT University of Copenhagen recently threw a Mario-themed night at Scrollbar, their local bar. Many of them being Video Game majors they went as far as to create 10 drinks based off the Mario universe. Some of them cocktails, others shots but all of them look pretty cool, like the Bowser cocktail pictured above of which they say:

Bowser

Fiery red-yellow gradient drink… with some bite!
2 cl Tequila
1 cl Coin-treau
5 cl Orange juice
1 cl Grenadine

Directions:
Stir first three ingredients, then drop in Grenadine for the gradient effect. Serve with ice in tall glass.

Garnish:
Blood orange wedge

Notes:
Modified ‘Tequila Sunrise’ – the Cointreau adds a nice twist.

Do geeks know how to party or what? Check out the link of their whole menu, see more pictures of the event and even download some stencils to make your own Mario decorations.

[Scrollbar]

After all these years following gaming through its many many forms (mainly Nintendo’s in the console area) there’s a time when you ask yourself: “Is videogaming worth all the things I do for the sake of it?” I could do other things, get other hobbies like:

-Building miniature ships inside of bottles.

-Have a pet.

-Go to night clubs and hit on random women. . .although studies say that a lot of these will be men.

You get the idea. So wonderful hobbies this world has for us. . .and most of us have decided to go into gaming. Well, I couldn’t be more satisfied.

Shigeru Miyamoto started it and incited a bunch of others who also created fascinating worlds and characters who give us that small spice of adventure, drama, and whatnot to our daily lives, giving us hope that we can do anything if we have the correct set of mind. But Mr. Miyamoto was first, and without his idea, I don’t really know what kind of human or animal would have been Mario (And yes, it is WRITTEN that the character who would rise videogames from the flames shall be called Mario!).

I only think that, with the release of Mario Galaxy this 2007, giving some hope for the Mario-solo franchise, this character is worthy of the yearly Retro Video compilation extravaganza!

First, we’ll start with the first game with Mario in it, Donkey Kong (Video by lfrage):

Very well, this Retro Video is quite special. Why, you ask? Ever seen Mario outside a Nintendo console? Well, I have, and it isn’t this game. Bonus points to the one who guesses which game I’m thinking about!

Mario Teaches Typing is the title of the game, and it’s basically that. Developed by Interplay and with license from Nintendo, it was created back in 1991 for the PC on MS-DOS, then released for PC and Mac in 1995. Mario goes through Super Mario Bros.-esque levels destroying blocks and stomping on koopas. But how? Each block and enemy have letters on them, so in order to make Mario move, just type the letter.

Swizzley shows us a little gameplay from level 1 and 3 from the game. Be careful though, you might want to lower the volume of your speakers since the audio devices for the music of this game are crap, but hey, you gotta give credit to a Mario game for MS-DOS. . .aww reminds me of the games I used to play in class.

As a curious fact, Charles Martinet didn’t do the voice of Mario for this game, it was done by Ronald B. Ruben.

Hmm. I started to wonder why just Super Mario Bros. 3 was on Retro Video. Oh what a gargantuan mistake it would’ve been to have just that game here, taking into account that Super Mario RPG exists! Yes, that poor bastard child of what could’ve been an epic union between Nintendo and Squaresoft, before the Cartridge-to-CD issues, and before the male characters from the Final Fantasy universe started to look gayer as games went by.

A Mario game on the SNES, is there something i have to know? Well, yes there is. Aside from being the first time Mario used commands in an RPG interface, we have a nice story and even nicer music. Oh, and did i mention Bowser allies with you? Oh, that part of Shounen stories will always be loved by yours truly; there are 2 enemies, but when a bigger, stronger enemy comes in, the other 2 join forces to defeat the evil-er being. Never grows old!

Part of the magic of SMRPG is, besides the blah blah power one of friendship yiddy yadda is that you get to SUFFER the loss of one of the most famous characters: Geno. Ah, that small elf-toy with the most powerful of attacks (9999 damage is a lot in the Mario universe, y’know?). I cried in the end, and so will you!

User yamiquen shows us one of the funniest parts of the game, when you have to fight the Axem Rangers. Yeah, you guessed right, they’re Power Rangers but. . .all of them have axes. . .and they even have a Megazord! How cool is that?

The government in the Neatherlands have recently banned Magic Mushrooms, including the famous Amanita Muscaria, which bears a striking resemblance to the super mushrooms of the Mario universe, after a 17 year old french girl jumped off a building after consuming one of these. And this isn’t the first time someone jumped off a building after eating one of these. Perhaps they thought they had an extra life?

[Boing Boing]