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…)

I can’t think of 3 things form the 90s more iconic than the dazzling, 16-bit glory of the SNES, the exciting, alternative taste of Pepsi, and the bone crushing power of ultra athlete, Bo Jackson. The question is, what would happen if you put all three together? Would aliens come down to Earth?  Would the city of Atlantis rise from the watery depths?  Would Cindy Crawford’s mole fall off?  Scientists have speculated for years, but don’t you know it, a meeting DID occur between these three titans of 90s iconography, and it went a little bit like this…