Super Mario 64
Jul 14, 2019 20:02:40 GMT -5
Post by anayo on Jul 14, 2019 20:02:40 GMT -5
I have enough childhood memories about this game to write several paragraphs about it.
The first time I saw Super Mario 64 I was 6 years old and completely disconnected from gaming media. I might have glanced at some video game magazines at the newsstand while my Mom was shopping but I certainly wasn’t subscribed to any and I didn’t watch any video game news related TV shows. This was also still a year away from my first experience with dial-up Internet so that was out of the question, too. In those days I would just walk into the store with my Mom or Dad and new video games would just spontaneously appear on the shelves.
I recognized Mario on the TV because I had Mario 3 on my NES. I think the stage was Bomb-Omb Battlefield. At first I did not realize that I was looking at 3D polygons. I was so used to Mario existing in 2D space that my brain processed what I was seeing as a flat plane confined to left-to-right movements. I tried moving Mario with the D-pad. Nothing happened. I pressed A and Mario jumped in place. Then it dawned on me that a Goomba waddling in the distance shrank according to the laws of perspective and that the background scenery converged on a vanishing point. “Wait…” I thought, “You can make Mario move DEEPER into the screen???”
My Dad came and told me it was time to go before I figured out how to make Mario walk. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Mario 64 did not look like something you should be able to play in your house. It felt like they shrunk an Industrial Light and Magic supercomputer into a box that fit under your TV. This might sound like an exaggeration in 2019 but remember that 1996 wasn’t too far removed from when Donkey Kong Country’s digitized sprites were enough to amaze people. Being so young and impressionable also probably helped me overlook that Mario 64’s models and textures were nowhere near as detailed as pre-rendered assets from recent 16-bit games.
One weekend I wanted to go to the store to see Mario 64 again, but I didn’t think my Dad would want to do that. So I told him, “Let’s go to the store to spend quality time together.” Dad gave me a dubious look and said, “If you want to go see the video games just tell me that. Don’t act like it’s for some other reason.” I sheepsihly admitted that was the reason I wanted to go. Then we got in the car he milled around while I explored Bomb Omb Battlefield.
Kids at school revered Mario 64. There were rumors of so-and-so’s twice removed cousin who had an N64 and Mario 64, but in 1996 I don’t think I knew anyone personally who owned it. We thought it was hilarious how if Mario touched lava, he’d grab the seat of his pants and leap into the air yelling, “Wa-hahahaha!” Some kid in my class made up this asinine joke about his brother yelling, “My butt’s on fire!” and someone nearby misunderstanding it for real life when he was just playing Mario 64.
One time in 1997 I was at my Mom’s workplace. She was/is a registered nurse. Near the service desk, there was a coca cola vending machine. I reached my hand up inside the drink slot and found that if I wormed my arm around just so I could reach a bunch of dollar bills. The first thought that popped into my mind was how many of them I would need to buy a Nintendo 64. But I didn’t get to do that because I showed the money to my Mom, and she told me to give it back. Her coworkers were laughing. The next time I went to her work place I tried this trick again but they had sealed up the inside of the machine so I couldn’t reach the bills anymore.
I’m not entirely sure why I wanted a Nintendo 64 and not a Playstation. I knew Playstation existed and that it was a really powerful and desirable game machine. I was aware of popular games such as Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, and Tekken. I guess those just didn’t draw my attention the same way as Mario. Nintendo 64 was still the object of my desire by 1998. Then in spring of that year I got what I had been asking for. It was my birthday and my Dad came home with a brand new N64 and a copy of… not Mario 64. Because I had seen this commercial on TV:
Banjo Kazooie also caught my attention from a demo kiosk at Wal-Mart. It was that part in Treasure Trove Cove where if you venture too far out into the water, a shark would appear and start chomping you. This particular N64 had a rumble pack attached to it. We take rumble for granted now, but experiencing it for the first time was unreal. It was kind of like the game was reaching out of the TV and affecting reality.
I was sick as a dog the day I got my N64. I had a fever and was still in my pajamas and was taking the day off from school. Also, my Dad insisted he got a turn on the N64 before me. I longingly watched him wander around Mumbo's Mountain. We had a conversation that went something like this:
“Is it my turn now?”
“No.”
“How about now?”
“Not yet.”
“Now?”
“Hold on.”
When I felt well enough my Mom took me back to Wal-Mart where I used birthday money from Grandma and Grandpa to finally buy Mario 64. It had been out for 2 years by then and had sold a bajillion copies so it only cost $20. I thought that was such a bargain. Finally owning it felt awesome. I don’t think any long awaited video game purchase in my adulthood quite lives up to it. Having disposable income now kind of kills the magic. Also when you’re 8 years old, waiting 2 years for something feels like an eternity. I pored over the instruction manual and memorized all of Mario’s special moves. I can still see his pre-rendered CG illustrations in my mind's eye. I would think about playing Mario 64 all day at school and boot up my Nintendo 64 as soon as I got home. One day at school I was humming the theme from Bomb Omb Battlefield, but I couldn’t remember where I had heard it. So I asked my teacher, “Hey Mrs. So-and-so, there’s this song that’s stuck in my head but I don’t remember where I heard it from, do you know what this is?” Then I hummed it and she looked at me like I was speaking Chinese and said, “Uhhh no sorry.”
A kid at church told me a rumor that you could unlock Luigi. I got really excited, but I think he stipulated that you needed a gameshark to reach him. I didn’t have one of those or the disposable income to get one. By the time I had both, I knew better.
Once I started a new save file on Mario 64 just so I could unlock the metal cap for the first time and make the theme play indefinitely. I let it play on the TV while I danced to it:
In either 1999 or 2000 I was browsing the Internet on my Mom’s computer and I found an article announcing that Nintendo was planning to come out with Super Mario 64 2. I was super on board with the idea, but as evidenced by this article on unseen64, nothing ever came of it.
The first time I saw Super Mario 64 I was 6 years old and completely disconnected from gaming media. I might have glanced at some video game magazines at the newsstand while my Mom was shopping but I certainly wasn’t subscribed to any and I didn’t watch any video game news related TV shows. This was also still a year away from my first experience with dial-up Internet so that was out of the question, too. In those days I would just walk into the store with my Mom or Dad and new video games would just spontaneously appear on the shelves.
I recognized Mario on the TV because I had Mario 3 on my NES. I think the stage was Bomb-Omb Battlefield. At first I did not realize that I was looking at 3D polygons. I was so used to Mario existing in 2D space that my brain processed what I was seeing as a flat plane confined to left-to-right movements. I tried moving Mario with the D-pad. Nothing happened. I pressed A and Mario jumped in place. Then it dawned on me that a Goomba waddling in the distance shrank according to the laws of perspective and that the background scenery converged on a vanishing point. “Wait…” I thought, “You can make Mario move DEEPER into the screen???”
My Dad came and told me it was time to go before I figured out how to make Mario walk. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Mario 64 did not look like something you should be able to play in your house. It felt like they shrunk an Industrial Light and Magic supercomputer into a box that fit under your TV. This might sound like an exaggeration in 2019 but remember that 1996 wasn’t too far removed from when Donkey Kong Country’s digitized sprites were enough to amaze people. Being so young and impressionable also probably helped me overlook that Mario 64’s models and textures were nowhere near as detailed as pre-rendered assets from recent 16-bit games.
One weekend I wanted to go to the store to see Mario 64 again, but I didn’t think my Dad would want to do that. So I told him, “Let’s go to the store to spend quality time together.” Dad gave me a dubious look and said, “If you want to go see the video games just tell me that. Don’t act like it’s for some other reason.” I sheepsihly admitted that was the reason I wanted to go. Then we got in the car he milled around while I explored Bomb Omb Battlefield.
Kids at school revered Mario 64. There were rumors of so-and-so’s twice removed cousin who had an N64 and Mario 64, but in 1996 I don’t think I knew anyone personally who owned it. We thought it was hilarious how if Mario touched lava, he’d grab the seat of his pants and leap into the air yelling, “Wa-hahahaha!” Some kid in my class made up this asinine joke about his brother yelling, “My butt’s on fire!” and someone nearby misunderstanding it for real life when he was just playing Mario 64.
One time in 1997 I was at my Mom’s workplace. She was/is a registered nurse. Near the service desk, there was a coca cola vending machine. I reached my hand up inside the drink slot and found that if I wormed my arm around just so I could reach a bunch of dollar bills. The first thought that popped into my mind was how many of them I would need to buy a Nintendo 64. But I didn’t get to do that because I showed the money to my Mom, and she told me to give it back. Her coworkers were laughing. The next time I went to her work place I tried this trick again but they had sealed up the inside of the machine so I couldn’t reach the bills anymore.
I’m not entirely sure why I wanted a Nintendo 64 and not a Playstation. I knew Playstation existed and that it was a really powerful and desirable game machine. I was aware of popular games such as Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, and Tekken. I guess those just didn’t draw my attention the same way as Mario. Nintendo 64 was still the object of my desire by 1998. Then in spring of that year I got what I had been asking for. It was my birthday and my Dad came home with a brand new N64 and a copy of… not Mario 64. Because I had seen this commercial on TV:
Banjo Kazooie also caught my attention from a demo kiosk at Wal-Mart. It was that part in Treasure Trove Cove where if you venture too far out into the water, a shark would appear and start chomping you. This particular N64 had a rumble pack attached to it. We take rumble for granted now, but experiencing it for the first time was unreal. It was kind of like the game was reaching out of the TV and affecting reality.
I was sick as a dog the day I got my N64. I had a fever and was still in my pajamas and was taking the day off from school. Also, my Dad insisted he got a turn on the N64 before me. I longingly watched him wander around Mumbo's Mountain. We had a conversation that went something like this:
“Is it my turn now?”
“No.”
“How about now?”
“Not yet.”
“Now?”
“Hold on.”
When I felt well enough my Mom took me back to Wal-Mart where I used birthday money from Grandma and Grandpa to finally buy Mario 64. It had been out for 2 years by then and had sold a bajillion copies so it only cost $20. I thought that was such a bargain. Finally owning it felt awesome. I don’t think any long awaited video game purchase in my adulthood quite lives up to it. Having disposable income now kind of kills the magic. Also when you’re 8 years old, waiting 2 years for something feels like an eternity. I pored over the instruction manual and memorized all of Mario’s special moves. I can still see his pre-rendered CG illustrations in my mind's eye. I would think about playing Mario 64 all day at school and boot up my Nintendo 64 as soon as I got home. One day at school I was humming the theme from Bomb Omb Battlefield, but I couldn’t remember where I had heard it. So I asked my teacher, “Hey Mrs. So-and-so, there’s this song that’s stuck in my head but I don’t remember where I heard it from, do you know what this is?” Then I hummed it and she looked at me like I was speaking Chinese and said, “Uhhh no sorry.”
A kid at church told me a rumor that you could unlock Luigi. I got really excited, but I think he stipulated that you needed a gameshark to reach him. I didn’t have one of those or the disposable income to get one. By the time I had both, I knew better.
Once I started a new save file on Mario 64 just so I could unlock the metal cap for the first time and make the theme play indefinitely. I let it play on the TV while I danced to it:
In either 1999 or 2000 I was browsing the Internet on my Mom’s computer and I found an article announcing that Nintendo was planning to come out with Super Mario 64 2. I was super on board with the idea, but as evidenced by this article on unseen64, nothing ever came of it.