Ok so I have been sketchy lately about posting here. I used to be on a two or three a day pace but have gotten much busier at work leaving less down time for even short posts here and there. I write this morning to those of you who grew up playing (or still play) the Mario franchise games. I came across an interesting project from some genius photoshopper who made a photorealistic Mario face.

I took the larger picture just so that you could be immersed in the total creepiness of what Mario would look like. Not only would you not want to be him or hang out with him, but you would probably steer your kids away from anyone with a molestache that prominent.

Of course there is no point of having Mario if he does not have a nemesis. We all know Bowser but I never thought that I would end up liking Bowser better than Mario. The rendering of him is below.

So here is my final thought on this. Nintendo, shame on you for duping entire generations of kids into playing with a creepy plumber. I used to be proud that Mario was Italian but not anymore. Mario for heavens sake shave that creep ’stache dude. Bowser you rock. I would say go ahead and eat Mario, in fact it almost makes me want to bust out my Nintendo and get to the final fight and just stand there. It would mean one less creepy weirdo wandering the virtual streets of video game lore.

Credits:

Gaming Today: Realistic Bowser

Gaming Today: Realistic Mario

Ok by now if you read my blog regularly at all or you just know me you know that I have an Xbox 360 as my console of choice. I think that despite it being from the evil empire in Redmond it does offer the best mix of good games and cost but it is because no one else has anything like XBox Live.

Regardless, last year (actually late 2006) a game called Gears of War was made that truly rocked the socks off of a lot of people myself included and dominated may must play lists for a while and some people still obsess about it. Well if you follow gaming then you know that GoW 2 is slated to come out this year sometime and the gaming world is getting ready for it. There are a lot of gamers that will guaranteed never get to play it on their console of choice the Wii.

Below is a quote from the President of Epic Games (the company responsible for Gears and also for Unreal Tournament) which I think sums up to a T the reason I will not own a Wii and why I think that its dominance may last on the units sold column but will not hold steady in the long term against the technical superiority of the other two consoles.

It’s a virus where you buy it and you play it with your friends and they’re like, “Oh my God that’s so cool, I’m gonna go buy it.” So you stop playing it after two months, but they buy it and they stop playing it after two months but they’ve showed it to someone else who then go out and buy it and so on. Everyone I know bought one and nobody turns it on. Obviously there’s a class of people who really love it and enjoy it and are getting into the games but I’m still waiting for that one game that makes me play it.

This pretty much sums up the people that I know as well. Sure there are the “Nintendo fanboys” who have to own every game that has a major Nintendo franchise character plastered on the box which means that of course Smash Brothers has been a success and so has Mario Galaxy. But for those of us who do not care about a kid oriented Street Fighter using historical Nintendo characters, or who think that swimming with sting rays is lame then what do you have for me? The novelty of flailing your arms in the “real motion” wears thin after you figure out that a simple wrist flick is not only more effective but can be done sitting on the couch, bowling works the best in my opinion but then you realize that YOU ARE BOWLING on a $200 system which last time I checked is like 100 games of bowling…

So do I think that Nintendo is a sinking ship? Of course not you can’t sink when everybody and their mom buys your console. Do I plan on ever owning one? Also of course not. Do I think that the comment from Epic could be detremental to the sales curve that Nintendo has experienced? Yes I do. Epic is a big player and other developers will take notice so will real gamers who may have been on the fence about adding a Wii to their entertainment center.

Really sum it up this way. Does the cover of the first game look like it will give you more action and intensity or does the cover of the second game look more appealing to you? There is a place for everyone but I know where mine is.