It's-a... not bad?

The trailer for the Super Mario Bros. movie is out, and it's... kind of promising. Gotta admit, I was not expecting that! It's very colorful, the way a Mario movie should be (and the way the first film by Disney wasn't), and it's playfully self-aware. For instance, when held captive by Bowser, Luigi insists that he doesn't know any other men in colorful overalls... with bushy mustaches... and their first initials embroidered on their hats. It's gotta be one great big coincidence, right? Uh, you're not buying that.

I would watch this. I would not regret spending the sawbuck to watch this, even if it's disappointing, because I had zero expectations for this movie, and the trailer has already far surpassed them.

Ooh ooh OW OW OW!
(image from Arcade Club UK)

Speaking of Nintendo, there's a sale on a whole bunch of their old arcade games on the Switch eShop. Arcade Archives sales rarely happen, and even when they do, it's never Nintendo's own games, so if you're interested, I suggest jumping on those discounts before they end on the fifth of December. I've personally got my eye on Vs. Super Mario Bros. (the Super Mario Bros. we all know and love, with stages from The Lost Levels that we all know but don't love quite so much), Donkey Kong 3 (Galaga, but the object is to give a gorilla rectal cancer), and at least one of the Punch Out!!s.

Several other Switch titles (not by Nintendo, but nevertheless offered at tantalizing discounts) have piqued my interest, including TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection ($28), the Pocky and Rocky revival ($21), and Elevator Action Returns ($13). Plus there's the Atari 50th Anniversary collection, which is a hefty forty dollars but is nevertheless alluring due to the promise of rock solid Atari Jaguar emulation, something that's been tough to achieve on home computers and was until now unfathomable on the lowly Switch hardware. Something tells me this is going to be a very costly holiday season for old school gamers like myself.

By the way, for those interested, I'm shifting from Twitter to other social networks, including the scrappy up and comer Cohost. I recently posted a retrospective on the Mattel/INTV Intellivision there, which I think is worth a look. Before smart TVs and a game console that was thinking, Mattel promised the world "intelligent television," but how bright was the Intellivision, really? This Cohost-exclusive article holds the answer.