I can’t believe I was 8 years old when Super Mario Brothers 3 was first released on the NES. I had been lucky enough that SMB3 was released around my birthday, and being that my birthday and Christmas was the only time I would get new video games, I knew that this was my one moment to own the game. The fact that this is one of the very few birthday presents that I can recall opening up first thing that morning says something about the game. I remember peeling back the wrapping paper and exposing that bright yellow box. When all the paper was off I looked at that cover of Mario flying in that raccoon suite for a few minutes and the very idea of actually holding onto Mario 3 with my own hands finally struck me. I now possessed Mario 3, and I knew it was good before I even played it.

The build up to Mario 3 was rather incredible. Thinking about it, up to that point Mario 3 had to be one of, if not these most hyped game up to that point. There really wasn’t such a thing as a hyped game in those days. Sure there was licensed stuff that people couldn’t wait to play like Batman and Ninja Turtles, but nothing video gaming could claim as its own that the public was fully aware of. These days its common to find big marketing muscles behind stuff like the latest Halo, Call of Duty, or hell, even New Super Mario Brothers, but at those times it was unprecedented. Heck, Super Mario Brothers 3 essentially had a movie built around it in the form of The Wizard which hit theaters two months before Super Mario 3’s release. Talk about genius marketing. Then there was this commercial, which proved that in 1990, Mario Mania was at one of is heights. I would have said it’s peak, but looking at the sales of games like New Super Mario Brothers Wii, DS, and Mario Kart, the guy has never been stronger.

With so many “Top” lists going around, I figured I would give a list a shot. Instead of bringing you a Top 10 or 5 of the best games of the year, I decided to bring you a list of my favorite games that I played in ‘09 that didn’t actually come out in ‘09. So enjoy my personal picks, and maybe some of them will inspire you to hunt them down and try them yourself if you haven’t already.

5. Soul Bubbles – Nintendo DS – Released June 2008

For whatever reason Soul Bubbles is a Toys R Us exclusive. I don’t really know who thought that was a good idea, but it is what it is. I happened across Soul Bubbles around June of ‘09 and saw it for a measly 10 dollars. Hearing nothing but good things about the game I decided to give it a shot. Developed by a little company named Mekensleep, Soul Bubbles feels like a modern day version of the cult classic PC and Gameboy game Bubble Ghost. The idea is that the player has to protect a bunch of spirits by drawing a bubble (or bubbles) around them and navigating them through a series of mazes and obstacles. It is a simple concept, but the developers throw a few curve balls throughout the game that requires the player to use their head a bit, like knowing when to split bubbles, suck the air out of them, and eventually mixing them with different elements like water and gas. It is a breezy, often times relaxing game that is worth a serious look. In fact, I just spotted a bunch of them at my local Toys R Us just last night for the same price I bought it back in a June. Check it out.

4. Braid – Xbox 360 – Released August 2008

Just about everyone I know that played Assassin’s Creed says the same thing… “I got bored and stopped playing after the 3rd assassination”. It’s true that the first game played all of it’s cards pretty early on and the remaining 70% of the game felt like an arduous grind. Ubisoft created an amazing world wrapped in a cool science fiction story that had a ton of potential, but it kind of felt like they forgot to flesh it out with an actual game. For whatever reason, I muscled my way through the original game and found the story compelling enough that I wanted to see what happens next. Just a note that this article contains some light spoilers…

As you’ve probably heard, Assassin’s Creed II delivers in every way where AC1 came up short. It features an emotionally driven story with a charismatic main character. The missions (for the most part) don’t feel repetitive and drive the plot forward rather than acting like an obstacle. Most importantly, AC2 fills in the void of the enormous world with actual stuff to do… revolutionary, I know.

The first bullet point on my list of improvements is the main character. Ezio is infinitely more likable than his brooding ancestor Altair. His development over the game’s 10 year span is not only physical but very emotional. The first few missions in the game give you an idea of Ezio’s world. He’s basically a naive kid, with a loving family and an ideal life. When all that gets ripped away from him it really makes him a sympathetic character that is easy to connect with. Altair’s main motivation was to regain his status in the Assassins, which I personally found very shallow and uninteresting. Ezio is all about vengeance and making sense of his tragedy.

Last week I uploaded nearly the entire GFGames series on ScrewAttack (having problems rendered a new video of Tactical Espionage) and we’ve had a really good response so far. On the above video, la Tragedie is the first highlight on the g1 Spotlight. It’s good to see la Tragedie get a little respect as it’s our least watched episode of the series. A few days before that, Rated M for Molester was featured on their front page. It has been great getting introducing GFGames to a new crowd, and it’s encouraging to see that some people over there already know of it from Newgrounds. One commenter even went as far to say that the episode featured on ScrewAttack were stolen. I let him know that they came straight from the source.

In order to get things rolling, our hub page (or mini-site, whatever you prefer) is operational and is located right here. Or you can click the graphic to the right. On the day of the marathon the hub page will be the default for Shamoozal.com for the so it’ll be easy to keep track of everything going on. You’ll be able to find a tentative schedule on the hub page, this gives you an idea of when we’d like to do things. It doesn’t mean that those things will happen exactly at those times, just that we’re aiming for those goals. Also, there is lots of information on the different types of events. Oh and remember, a 5 dollar donation before 11PM EST on 12/12/09 will get you into our raffle, even if you donated earlier, like today.

The video is officially up on the YouTubes and it is time to share all the details about the event. Here’s a PR straight from the Shamoozal Press Room, i.e. my home computer room.

NATIONAL PARK, New Jersey – Shamoozal.com is proud to present the Second Annual ‘NES Holiday Marathon’, a live 12 hour event to raise money for charity.

Starting December 12th at 12PM EST, the gang from Shamoozal will host a live 12 hour Nintendo Entertainment System themed event. During those 12 hours, the crew hopes to raise money for charity by playing classic game titles along with a host of other events. The charity, Child’s Play, specializes in distributing video games, toys, books and cash to children’s hospitals across the country.

It’s that time of the year again! I’ve spent the better part of this weekend (mainly today) putting together a new promotional video for Saturday’s upcoming NES Marathon. The video we put together last year was a huge success for us, and to be honest, if I didn’t make that thing and Gametrailers didn’t push it for us, we probably would have had the worst turn out ever. That said, I realized the importance of doing the whole promo video thing. I’ll be spending some time this week uploading this video to different places (probably later in the week when it’s closer to Saturday) in order to help us drum up a bit of support.

Not sure how happy I am with the finished product here, but it was an interesting project. It’s essentially a sprite movie, and I’ve actually never made one of those before. The process of gathering all the sprite rips from games and shoving them into Flash was somewhat painless but a lot of work. Still, I guess I can see the appeal of working on sprite movies because once you have the character moving around, it’s pretty easy to get your point across and come up with scenarios. The scene I animated here would have been a nightmare to animate had I did traditional frame by frame animation, but I was able to crank out the bulk of the work in a few short hours. Again, I can see where the appeal in making these types of movies lies now… though I still don’t particularly dig sprite movies, which is why I guess I’m on the fence about the one I just created.

Anyway, check it out, share some thoughts on the smorg. I might be doing a few changes to it, so if there is anything glaring that you think needs adjusting, let me know.

I don’t know about anyone else, but not only is Thanksgiving a time to meet up with family and friends and eat plenty of food, it’s also a time where I get to play plenty of games. For me, there isn’t much better than vegging out on a Thanksgiving day and playing lots of games before and after the festivities. In fact, several of my favorite moments in gaming history are tied to the holiday.

Maybe it’s sad that I remember this but I remember playing Ocarina of Time on Thanksgiving day and loving it to pieces. This was around the time in my life where I had my first job and Ocarina was one of the first games I bought with my own hard earned money. I remember pretty clearly spending the day running through the belly of Lord Jabu-Jabu and capping off the night with a trip through the Forest Temple, which is probably my favorite dungeon of any Zelda game ever. Looking up the date, it’s hard to believe that was over 10 years ago. Time sure is flying.

I also remember two years later spending my Thanksgiving night playing tons of Final Fantasy 9 on the original PSX. I had to be in at work on Black Friday by 4 AM, so I thought maybe it would be easier if I tried to stay awake the whole night instead of going to sleep and waking up early. I played FF9 for hours that night until it was finally time to go into work, in which I completely regretting staying awake about 2 hours into my shift. That was one heck of a day, that’s for sure.

Well it’s getting close to that time of the year again when the Shamoozal crew gets together to raise a few bucks for charity by sitting around and playing a bunch of NES games live over the internet. Last year we had two marathons, one during the summer and another at the end of the year, so while this is our “Second Annual” Marathon, it’s really our third charity drive.

The action starts December 12th and will go on from about 12pm to 12am est. The actual charity we’ll be donating too is actually still up in the air, so if you have a charity you’d like to support, why not suggest it to us? As of now details of the event are sort of scarce, but I promise you’ll be hearing much more about this in the next two weeks. I’ll of course have a video to help promote the event, and I’ll dive into more stuff like the games we’ll be playing, prizes to be won, ect. Just think of this as a “Save the Date” type of deal for now.

Please look forward to it!

Back in September my nephew and I went over to a local game con called “Game Core.” I was curious to see what the con offered and was also in the mood to pick up a couple of classic games so off we went.

While there I happened across a table that was occupied by a podcaster that runs a show called “We Talk Games.” They asked me if I was willing to do a quick take for their show and I mentioned that I too dabble in a little podcasting. Of course they never heard of Shamoozal (who has?) but I went ahead and told them a bit about it albeit off air. Whoops!

So anyway, if you feel like it, head on over to We Talk Games and download their latest show. I’m at the 14:50 mark where you can listen to me totally botch a plug job, take a jab at the 360 (come on, how can I pass it up?) and try really, really hard to describe why I liked Dead Space despite being able to write 6 paragraphs worth of information about a day later.