Mario is a short pudgy weakling.  He runs around the Mushroom Kingdom completely vulnerable to all the enemies rushing to kill him.  The only advantage he has is his shoes.  Apparently his shoes are spiked with needles laced with cyanide, and can murder any foe who doesn’t have a spike sticking out of their head.  Now, in a world as dangerous as the Mushroom Kingdom, it would be awfully pointless for Mario to try and survive if he didn’t have a little help.  Lucky for him, there are many magical power-ups to be found to protect Mario’s fragile mortality.  So without further ado, here are the top ten Power-Ups to be found in the world of Mario.

#10- The Magic Mushroom- Its the first power-up Mario ever encounters, (not counting the hammer in Donkey Kong).  The mushroom makes Mario twice his normal size, and also able to withstand a violent attack without dying.  When I was a kid, I always thought the Mushroom made Mario his normal adult self, as if his small pudgy starting point was the effect of some kind of Koopa Kurse or something.  But the reality is, the small Mario is the real Mario.  Assuming Mario has normal human height of about 5 foot 8 inches, the mushroom makes him over ten feet tall!  That in turn makes you realize that these goombas and koopa troopers are the size of regular people…scary!  The reason this mushroom is ranked low on the list is because despite its usefulness, its the most plentiful power-up, and therefore the most boring to encounter. (more…)

Chiptune rockstars, Anamanaguchi, have been getting a lot of attention lately. After all, they did just score the soundtrack to the new Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World 8-bit video game, which will be available tomorrow on iTunes. But since we haven’t talked much about them here at Internetclub ’91, it would be a good time to put up a few of their things.

Do you love the power glove as much as Lucas from The Wizard does? You wish you did, dork! Just watch how it’s done.

Scott Pilgrim fans and retro gaming fans unite!

To coincide with the release of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World this Friday, game developer Ubisoft has released a retro styled brawler featuring the Scott Pilgrim character on a mission to defeat his girlfriend’s 7 evil boyfriends.

What’s not to like here? The 8-bit pixel art looks beautiful, the music (by Anamanaguchi) sounds bit-tastic, and it’s available for download on Playstation 3 (soon to be released on X-Box) at the low price of $10.

“Misirlou”, the iconic surf song by Dick Dale & The Del Tones (more commonly known as the song from “Pulp Fiction”), was remade as an 8-bit Nintendo song. Check it out- it’s tubular.

I wish there was a filter on the radio that turned everything 8-bit!

In case you want to hear the original, Dick Dale & The Del Tones performed ”Misirlou” in the 1963 move, “A Swingin’ Affair.” Check it out- it’s tubular.

Everybody’s catching World Cup fever, but what do you do when you can’t play soccer?? Play Nintendo soccer! There’s a simplistic beauty in these 8-bit images. Just look at that neon green grass, the teams of soccer player clones, and the pixelated ball with five black dots. If you have an NES, I recommend snatching Nintendo Soccer on eBay for $5. Go France!

Mario is a slow, fat, lazy, jumping plumber from Brooklyn.  The guy from Ninja Gaiden is an athletic, throwing star, flipping machine from the mountains of Japan!  Watch him destroy goombas, turtles, and the rest of Bower’s minions in this amazing video!