A wrong time ago, before Eegra was even an internet sperm, I went to Tokyo Game Show 2006, and had a magical encounter with a dodgy Korean Mario bootleg for the MSX, called Super Bros. World 1. You can read the full story here, or, if you can't be bothered, you can probably get the gist from this photo of the box:
Super Bros. World 1 is probably someone's childhood gaming memory, which makes it just as valid as the 'real thing', by any meaningful standard. That's why I have a fascination for this sort of cultural bric-a-brac -- I wonder who made it and how and why, and who played it and where they bought it and how they remember it. There's a hundred stories about this game, and I'll probably never hear any of them. It's a little mysterious, this weird Mario from a parallel universe, and it makes me a little excited, and a little sad.
Someone else with a great fondness for out-of-the-mainstream gaming curios is Jeremy Penner, who not coincidentally runs Glorious Trainwrecks. Recently he happened upon some footage of Super Bros. World 1 in action, which he uploaded to YouTube for all to enjoy, and it would be remiss of me not to share it with you here:
Jembleby writes...
Items of interest:
- The music is a pretty decent rendition of SMB3 music!
- Fireballs bounce off of coins!
- The terrifying Deadly Hover-Boulder in stage two!
I was recently in Korea for just a few days, and, as I mentioned at the time, I was amazed and delighted to discover that they really do show StarCraft matches on TV. Here's a couple of photos from my cheap hotel room in Seoul:
This show was filmed in a small studio, with a live audience that I'm going to guess consisted mostly of friends and families. But still -- TV! And not just late at night, either. And you know what else? Commentators!
Just like a real sport!
Remember how I wrote that Trouserful (linked above) from a PC bang? Here's the very first thing I saw when I walked in:
You hear about how StarCraft is this huge thing in Korea, but the strangeness of it doesn't properly register until you see it with your own eyes. I hadn't seen this game in nearly ten years, then I step off the plane and suddenly it's a national pastime!
I took many beautiful and interesting photos in Seoul, but you get these boring shit ones because they're the only ones about videogames.
It's another one of these! I wrote it very early this morning, in a Korean PC bang. I flew to Korea at my own expense, just to write this column!