Great Video Games While High: Super Mario

I recently scored a Nintendo Wii off Craigslist for super cheap. After playing more heavy, dramatic games for as long as I can remember, I desperately needed some change. I needed to get back to my roots.

It turns out those roots were in the Mushroom Kingdom.

One of the great things about the Wii is that you can download the old-school NES, Super NES, and N64 games. I wanted to go way back, so I downloaded Super Mario Bros. 3 and The Legend of Zelda.

It cost 1,000 Wii points, about 10 bucks, for both: money well spent. As the Super Mario start screen loaded up, and hearing those familiar sounds, I felt like a little kid again.

The only difference this time around: I had a bottle of Blackstone Merlot and a bowl of strawberry cough to power me up for some intense and extremely satisfying gaming.

You can imagine the rush of nostalgia I felt as I began in World 1-1: hearing and seeing Mario jump around killin’ goombas and koopas; avoiding those crazy plants that come out of pipes; powering up off mushrooms and eventually finishing the level with 140 seconds to spare. Nice!

One thing I did notice: the game is hard! I got like four game-over’s while working my way through the first world. While this was frustrating at first, I realized it was making the game way more fun.

For my fellow gamers out there, I recommend going back to play some old school Mario games. Or even just old-school games in general- go back to your roots. You don’t even need a Wii to play Mario games, websites like this one let you play Super Mario Bros. 3 online. An internet search can easily yield tons of sites that have Mario games, or ROMs and Emulators. However, it’s not quite the same when you don’t have a controller in your hand!