What I Learned from Video Games: Sometimes You Have No Friends

It's all fun and games until Red Yoshi eats Luigi.

In the New Super Mario Bros. Wii, you will die many, many, times. It won’t be evident why at first, but get to the second world. After about a level or two, be ready to use the game’s unlimited continues. A lot.

Oh, no, it’s no fault of your own. Not at all. The levels are kind of insane, drawing from the dynamic of the original Super Mario Bros. as well as many of the subsequent Mario titles. And while you don’t need to worry about a three-dimensional world, you do need to worry about goombas that are smart enough to turn around and rub their death-flavored mushroom bodies all over you.

But even that isn’t the reason for your dying problems. No, your problem lies in your desire to be social, to hang out with friends. The Wii is a party-inducing console. So of course you’re going to hook things up, invite a few buddies over, and get rolling with the four-player co-op mode. Of course. And it’s going to be hilariously fun. And you’ll laugh. Your friends will laugh. And then… Oh, no…

 

Someone jumps on your head right as you’re trying to get over a gap. You’re dead. Well, it’s no big deal. You have unlimited continues, right? So you continue on until one of your friends grabs all the power ups that came out of a mystery box, leaving you pint sized. See, now this is frustrating. Don’t you wish you could throw your Wiimote right about now?

 

Super Mario Bros. Wii is, no lie, a fun game, but it bears some striking similarities to real life social networking, in which your friends can singlehandedly kill your game. One post, one comment, one picture, and your credibility is in the tubes. Yes, the game–networking–can be hard to begin with, especially if you’re trying to establish a following or some credibility, but combine it with your friends posting pictures of your 21st birthday party if you’d like to really handicap yourself.

In the case of the game, it really is all for fun. But what I’ve learned from Super Mario Bros. Wii is this: In some games, you have no friends.