June 11, 2008 - The next toady that informs me the princess is in another castle is going to get my controller rammed through his face!

Ah yes, the original Super Mario Bros. - a timeless classic. It's also a game that punishes players with heinously stiff controls and grueling difficulty, but the same could be said for just about every other game on the market at the time. SMB was a cut above the rest, and it changed gaming forever.

Young players are now spoiled with comparably scintillating graphics and controls that actually respond far more appropriately when you hit the corresponding buttons. Back in the mid-1980s, SMB was serious business. It still is today. Considering most peoples' prior experiences with home gaming devices involved one box shooting at another box, the game was freakin' brilliance incarnate.

My early years of gaming experiences before the arrival of the NES were tenuous at best. Graduating from an old hand-me-down Atari 2600 to Nintendo's first console was a momentous occasion. I can almost certainly recall a blinding white holy light emanating from the box as I frantically tore it open. Shortly after, I received my first addictive taste of SMB.

Stomping Goombas, eating weird mushrooms, and dropping the same fire-breathing lizard into a pit of lava over and over again - all the while in search of the elusive princess - was an enamoring experience. I immediately clocked many months of play on the NES, particularly in Mario's pixelated world. No matter how many times I fell into a pit, got munched by a piranha plant, or died numerous other virtual deaths, I always returned for more punishment.

Today, the former marvels of World 1-1 and beyond hold less sway over me, but I can look back with satisfaction at my misspent youth with my Bros.