N-Philes

I know you probably wanted more Bowser, but today I feel like switching it up and taking this show on a completely different tangent. Mario & Wario was released in 1993 on the Super Famicom and we haven't looked back since. Partly because the majority of American gamers wouldn't know what game I'm talking about, and also because the game itself is horribly boring. It's sort of like playing solitaire, except there aren't any cards and it's less fun than solitaire.

Oh wow, the pizza's here. I'll be right back.

Now, that was exciting. Wasn't that exciting?

In Mario & Wario, our dastardly alter-ego has devised a brilliant scheme to thwart Mario and his buddies – he's going to put oversized buckets and hats over their heads so they can't see anything. Wario is quite the brilliant mastermind, way better than Bowser and his techniques of sneaking up behind Mario and grabbing him as displayed in the magnificent Mario's Time Machine. Our hero comes in the form of a fairy, who seems to have appeared out of nowhere. You use your Super Famicom mouse to control this fairy as she uses her magic wand for the greater good – turning dotted outlines into boxes and whatnot. Each level is set up like a puzzle, and at the end of each map is our friend Luigi who assists Mario by removing whatever novelty item he has placed on his head.

Suddenly, Luigi isn't so useless. Mario and friends are so inept at taking buckets off their heads that they need the help of some beany side-kick to do basic tasks. Impastabowl.

Anyway, just so we can wrap this up feeling like you actually accomplished something, Nintendo took a page from Sonic the Hedgehog and had our villain be every boss. After each level we're faced with what I assume is a boss battle, either that or just some lame mini-game, but either way it's so easy you'll forget that you played the game as you're playing it.

This game doesn't have any epic final boss battle, no world to save, no distressed babes screaming from dark castle-tops – it just ends. After you clear all 80 something stages you're just rewarded with some generic ending sequence that doesn't even make any sense. Not like you'll want to play through the entire game anyway.