One man’s introspection on why he loves Mario games.

…not that I’m too old to laugh, but why am I here to witness all those jokes and puns about beans and unbrushed teeth?
This was kid’s stuff that I was enjoying good natured, colorful, clever kid’s stuff, but, still, kid’s stuff. It was a cross-generational kind of thing, like a Pixar movie at best, but, well, not very adult.
Mario’s not alone in not feeling quite right for me. I’ve thought in recent years that maybe Call of Duty is too Michael Bay for me and that, well, certain games aren’t enough Mario in the way they teach players their ideas. But as I played Bowser’s Inside Story, there was that reaction again: Maybe I’m too old for this.
Then I remembered a kid I met at a party a year ago. This boy was one of the few children there, disinterested in the conversations of his parents and other adults there. He had a DS. In it, he had New Super Mario Bros., his first Mario game. I mentioned some of the older ones, ones made before he was born. He’d never played them, never heard of them.
Maybe, I thought, he…

Read more here:
Why Grown Ups Play Super Mario

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