I suppose this is what getting older feels like.
Here’s Mario at nearly 30 years ago (29 years):
Mario 64
I remember everyone gathering around the TV to see this because it was so unbelievable.
A buddy of mine bought an N64 with Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64 on launch day. We didn’t know that it would sell out so quickly. He worked at a retail store and got into talking to a customer about him having the N64. Apparently the guy was a father that was desperate to get an N64 for his kid. He offered to pay 4x what my buddy paid at retail. It was a lot of money for a young guy in his late teens. He sold it to the guy out of his trunk the next day for the cash. It would be 6 months before inventory returned in stores and he was able to rebuy an N64.
I remember playing the Mario 64 demo in a kiosk at toys r us. I was blown away by it. I struggled to get Mario to walk in a straight line.
I was pretty young, but played tons of snes.
It still bugs me that your life count reset to 4 if you turned off the console.
Mario games have done that for a few episodes after this too. And also for 2D games that baffling thing where you can only save after finishing a castle or fortress.
Then Super Mario Odyssey just gets rid of lives completely, and nothing of value was lost.
This was Mario 40 years ago:
Fun fact: New Super Mario Bros turns 19 this year.
Yes, that means we’re close to the turning point where New Super Mario Bros gets older than what Super Mario Bros was when it was released.
Can’t wait for New Super Mario Bros (New)
That’s what’s mind blowing to me. The difference between games used to be staggering. The original Mario Bros compared to Mario 3 was huge. And jumping up to Mario 64 in less than a decade was even bigger still.
Obviously games have continued to improve since then, but we’ll never have such rapid massive leaps again.
The original Mario Bros compared to Mario 3 was huge.
And that was on the same system.
Honestly, I believe technical progress has grinded to a halt. Moore’s law was broken with regards to hardware. I cannot think of novel tech after smartphones. Now, it feels like everything new is a wealth hoarding scheme by corporate greed.
We’ll know there’s been a new tech revolution when HL3 comes out
One of my University students asked me the other day if I was doing anything special for the 20th anniversary of Revenge of the Sith.
I told him he needs to remember I control his grade.
Should’ve told him you have the high ground.
It’s not an anniversary the Jedi would celebrate…
The first time I played Super Mario on the N64 I can still recall how it made me slightly dizzy, which delighted me. That effect only lasted a short while, but it was a lot of fun to feel that disoriented by a video game, if but briefly.
It was the first time I remember people struggling to mentally map the controls.
Your grandma or little sibling could understand how to move NES Mario around (not necessarily being good at it, of course), but 3D was too intimidating for a lot of people to even try.
to be fair the sort of primitive camera controls took some getting used to
Yeah the controls on the early N64 games weren’t as intuitive as controls now. It wasn’t really until Halo that 3d games felt good to control.
turok was good on the n64.
quake was good in the 90s
Yes, the original is lines and crude unlike some of the other examples of “old 3D games”, but this is (maybe) the first actual 3D space game, so it has to start somewhere.
Guess I should have been more specific on first home system 3D space game. Yes, there were arcade and mainframe things before. But their game world wasn’t as big. :P
Atari Star Wars arcade game came out in 1983. One year prior to Elite in 1984:
Vectrex Starhawk was 1979
Spasim is a 3d space simulator from 1974, first person and multiplayer.
“NOSEWAT”
What you think 3D games looked like 20 years ago:
The thing is, 5 years before that games did look like triangle-boobed-Lara-Croft. There was just an enormous wave of tech progress in the 3D accelerator world from the late 90s to mid aughts
Nvidia, when the doom music kicked in.
God of War 2018 isn’t the same as God of War 2005, I’m not that old.
I think what’s more interesting is Mario today doesn’t even look much different than Mario 20 years ago. The Switch just never bothered, plus graphics in general are flattening out.
On a still picture taken in the right place, maybe. Bright, cartoony graphics also help. The Mario style is probably not the kind that’s best to showcase graphic power.
Anyway, animation, lighting and physics is where you can see the gap between Odyssey and Sunshine. Also richer, bigger environments, even though Sunshine used a lot of tricks and already looked rather impressive for the time on that front. Well, until framerate dropped into single-digit halfway through Noki Bay.
There’s certainly some improvement. I’ve played Sunshine recently on an emulator and it’s not as refined as Odyssey and yes, the physics jump a bit from 64 to Sunshine to Galaxy to Odyssey. They’re all quite enjoyable, just the Switch admits to only being a slight step up from a Wii U, lol. They all use tricks to look better, same with Zelda BotW artistic blur, etc.
In any case, Mario doesn’t exactly need picture perfect ray traced lit graphics where you can see every fiber of his mustache or how his overalls reflect light just right so you can see the denim texture. Then again … Lol
We went from the Wii to two Wiis duct taped together to two Wiis in a tablet and soon to three Wiis in a tablet
Super Mario 64 is 29 years old.
The bottom picture is Super Mario Sunshine. Released in 2002, so will be 23 years old this summer/fall.
Yeah I’m saying that author with 20 years is optimistic. Given development time of video games someone saw 3D Mario 30 years ago.
I can’t believe SNES mario was only 6 years before that. I’m so glad I was around to have my mind blown when firing up N64 mario for the first time
I remember watching someone playing tekken in TV store in 1995. That was 30 years ago and I’m old as fuck.
Why would you say this
You shut your mouth, the 90s were definitely like 10 years ago right?! :P
Yes. The 90s will always be 10 years ago.
Like that post said on here some weeks back: the 90’s was ten years ago. 2005 was also ten years ago. Doesn’t make sense but that’s how it feels in my brain.
Wait, the 90s ended?
Not in Portland.
Crysis is roughly as old now as Super Mario Bros 3 was when Crysis first released.
It got worse after a closer look - realizing this is Sunshine, and not something earlier…
I love SM64 but Sunshine is actually a great game as well.
Agreed but did some reason I keep going back to SM64. Sunshine is a lot harder to get into in my 30s compared to when I first played it as a teenager. Probably cause the mechanics are more complex. Meanwhile I can jump into SM64 at any time and still remember all the controls.
I wouldnt call it significantly more complex, the gameplay is basically the same except with an added jetpack mechanic. I recently played through sunshine for the first time since the gamecube came out on my steamdeck and it was fantastic.
I nearly assumed I was looking at sm64, but that one is turning 30 next year…
Halo 3, Modern Warfare, Mass Effect, GTA4, Super Mario Galaxy, Rock Band, Assassin’s Creed, and Portal all launched closer to the original Sonic the Hedgehog than today.
This year the original SMB will be forty years old.
yeah… PS3 is “retro” now!
I honestly don’t agree with that at all. 360 and PS3 are old but their games aren’t very different compare to the big budget games of today. A few fads ended and others took their place, but that’s it. To me retro systems end with the Wii, mainly because Wii was just an overclocked Gamecube.
I am with you on this one, but ask people who are in the business or “retro” and/or ask people who are 15-20yo today! it’s a sad truth: 2 generations ago and you’re already “retro” :)
