Top 50 Video Games: Number 3

Platform: NES

Absurdly Specific Genre: Eatin' shrooms, savin' princesses...

Difficulty: 7 (if you argue for any less, you've been playing the first few worldsnot enough of that 8th world)

Beaten: Yes - probably a dozen times

This is the best platformer ever made.

I expect there to be some dissent on that particular claim, but this isn't as tied into nostalgia as one might think. Sure, there was that week or two that one summer that my brother and I awoke every morning before dawn to squeeze in a bit of time with this game - that's not an insignificant part of why I love it. Really, though, consider this...

• * There is no more precise platform game in existence . When you want to move left, you move left, when you want to jump, it happens.
• * The graphics are about as pe to conjure, and still look crisp to this day.
• * The music, while maybe not quite as classic as the original overworld theme, is still catchy and memorable.
• * The worlds are all varied, as are the variety of weird and wonderful powerups.
• * This is the game where series mainstays like a World Map, the Leaf, and my favorite... Boos.

Also. Kuriboh's Shoe. The most lethal shoe since the infamous shoe-knife.

The difficulty curve was just about perfectly paced. Early levels could be mastered by relative newbies, while later levels give me fits to this day (8-2 still me throw the occasional controller).

There's room for plenty of debate when it comes to the best game in the series. SMB2 just missed out on the top 15, the original is an absolute classic (though maybe not one that I play on a very consistent basis, as the fact that you can't change direction in midair drives me up a wall). The newer 3D offerings are tremendous games in their own right (though I haven't played a whole lot of the Galaxy series, and I don't know why). Even the new co-op game (New Super Mario Brothers Wii) is miles ahead of most platformers. The series just doesn't seem to have any room for failure (though I'll go to my grave saying that Super Mario 64 is by leaps and bounds the worst of the series), but for my money, Super Mario Brothers 3 comes out on top.