A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z - or by platform & age

Content review for this game:
Pertaining to content listed in the upper left corner of this site.

"E" for everyone: Super Mario Bros. is the first of a long running and very successful series, involving a (now famous) plumber named Mario. Bowser (the incorrigible bad guy) kidnaps Princess Peach, and it's Mario's job to save her. As this game is over 20 years old (1985), the graphics are obviously outdated, and so in turn is the violence, which is extremely mild, and (as you may already know) mostly involves Mario jumping on the head of turtles and oversized walking mushrooms made up of a couple dozen pixels. So, compared to today's games, this is as mild violence-wise as you can get.

Content-wise: As I said, content-wise, this game is unquestionably appropriate for kids of all ages--well, at least visually. Very few children in this age group will want to play it. Of course if they do, by all means let them--they'll just probably get really bored in less than a couple minutes and want to go back to their newer, more visually appealing games. I'll explain why in the next category.

Difficulty-wise: Well, since this is one of the first full-fledged platforming games of it's kind, and it's more than 20 years old, you know it's going to be unforgivingly hard, and it is. The first few levels are moderately easy, and the controls are simple enough (one button for jump and another for run). The gameplay consists of Mario jumping, dodging, and smashing his way through the side-scrolling levels, and he has the ability to use power-ups like fire-ball (which makes Mario shoot fire from his hands), and the mushroom (which makes Mario's body bigger and lets him smash bricks with his head). After every few levels he fights a boss and gets that much closer to saving Princess Peach. If you're reading this, you've probably played the majority of this game before, so I'll spare you the further details. Difficulty-wise, I can't see kids younger than 10+ really being able to play a quarter of the game, let alone half of it. And as I said, kids 6- to 7+ probably will lose interest in a few minutes anyway.

Fun for: Patience and difficulty-wise I think adults are going to get the most out of this game, and of course there is quite a bit of nostalgia that goes along with it. I mean what person over 20 hasn't played this game? So, even though I think that kids 10+ could enjoy it, the most enjoyment will be from young adults who remember playing this from when they were kids.

Closing comment: This is one of, if not THE first platforming game, and it still holds up amazingly well all these years later. Although it does have a severely outdated presentation, the gameplay is still a blast. Content-wise, this is of course appropriate for kids, but they simply might not want to play it--and that might be a good thing, as this game is extremely challenging. So, difficulty-wise, I recommend this game for ages 10+.

© 2008 Lindenville Publishing. All rights reserved.