The extended Nintendo commercial known as The Wizard has no business working at all, on any level, much less surviving for 30+ years with a modest audience of fans willing to revisit it from time to time. Unlike other notable cult films (such as the 1993 Super Mario Bros., which this pairs well with), I… Read More Sure Plays a Mean Super Mario Bros. 3 – The Wizard (1989) Blu-ray
A notorious flop in its day, the 1993 live-action movie version of Super Mario Bros. is a fascinating disaster. The film feels like it was made by people who knew nothing about video games and, specifically, never had any interest in Nintendo’s smash hit Super Mario Bros. in the first place. In a strange way,… Read More Vote Koopa – Super Mario Bros. (1993) Blu-ray
Between The Last of Us on TV and The Super Mario Bros. Movie in theaters, 2023 may have finally broken the longstanding curse against video games being adapted to film or television. Both have been enormously popular in their respective mediums. Coincidentally (maybe?), fungus plays a major role in both stories. Are audiences finally ready… Read More Everybody Loves Mushrooms – The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
The 1991 video game adaptation of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade for the Nintendo Entertainment System was, in a number of ways, a big improvement over the crappy Temple of Doom game that preceded it. I might even go so far as to call this one pretty playable! That’s a huge leap forward. Of… Read More 8-Bit Replay – Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1991) for NES
The hat! The whip! The mine carts! Released four years after the movie that inspired it, the NES video game adaptation of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom features all those signature elements in 8-bit form plus an adorable chiptune rendition of John Williams’ iconic theme music on its soundtrack. Unfortunately, beyond those very… Read More 8-Bit Replay – Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1988) for NES
In the latter half of the 1980s, just about every kid in my middle school had a Nintendo Entertainment System, or at least it felt so at the time. I may have been one of the few whose console didn’t come pre-packaged with a copy of Super Mario Bros. (Mine was bundled with Konami’s Rush’n… Read More 8-Bit Replay – Super Mario Bros. (1985) for NES
With all the hype and hoolpa over Tom Gun: Maverick last year, did everyone somehow forget that Top Gun already had a sequel? Released way back in 1989, Top Gun: The Second Mission continues the adventures of ace fighter pilot Maverick as he blasts enemies out of the sky in 8-bit aerial combat on the… Read More 8-Bit Replay – Top Gun: The Second Mission (1989) for NES
By the end of 1987, Top Gun had already been a blockbuster hit in theaters the year before and a bestseller on videocassette that spring. Any self-respecting 13-year-old had already watched it a bunch of times, to the point of wearing out the tape replaying the aerial combat scenes over and over again. With no… Read More 8-Bit Replay – Top Gun (1987) for NES
Even though 1987’s action hit Predator may have technically been rated R, plenty of younger teens and even pre-teens saw and loved the movie, if not in theaters then on VHS or its ubiquitous presence on cable TV for years afterward. Many of those same kids were psyched to play the official video game adaptation… Read More 8-Bit Replay – Predator (1987) for NES
Because Tim Burton’s blockbuster Batman had spawned a video game spinoff that was very popular in its own right, his sequel of course needed its own game adaptation as well. In fact, it got several different adaptations spread out among a host of gaming consoles. Unfortunately, the NES version of Batman Returns was a huge… Read More 8-Bit Replay – Batman Returns (1993) for NES
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