Virtual to Reality--Pauline, Plumbers Prefer Blondes

Let's go old school today and talk about Nintendo's original "damsel-in-distress", the curvy Pauline.

Before Mario (aka Jumpman) started traveling through pipes to to save defenseless royals like Princess Peach, he climbed up rafters to rescue his girlfriend, the Lady, from the wild Donkey Kong. Of course, this mystery woman couldn't go unnamed for long and she eventually became known as Pauline.

In her original appearance, Mario's first girlfriend was a stereotypical blond in a pink dress, who only existed to give the hero a reason to challenge a giant gorilla. But once Peach was introduced as the new damsel and Mario's attention was turned toward a giant turtle, Pauline was redesigned into the voluptuous brunette in red that she is today.

Pauline's skin tight red dress bares absolutely no resemblance to the puffy dresses of her princess counterparts. This character is sassy and stylish. It's a shame she doesn't have a larger part of the series.

Do you think Mario's ex Pauline should be featured in more games?

Make Your Favorite Game Sound Like Garbage

A friend of mine posted this challenge on her Facebook page and I thought it would be interesting to throw it out to you...

Describe your favorite game, but make it sound as terrible as you possibly can.

Here's mine:

You play an overweight, out-of-work tradesman who is invited to a castle to have cake with its princess. After a short trip through the local sewer system, you arrive at the castle only to discover that it is a basically an abandoned art museum and the pretty princess has been captured by the disembodied voice of giant turtle. The only way to save her is to explore the art museum/castle and jump each into the paintings, one by one.

Inside the paintings, you will be forced to complete menial tasks in the pursuit of monetary compensation and defeat random creatures that are much larger than you so that they will transform into weird stars with creepy, beady eyes that never blink...

You will waste an extraordinary amount of time running up a staircase that never ends.

Your only friends in this journey are a transparent little person in a mushroom hat and diaper that can somehow be in several places at once, an owl that likes to remind you how fat you are and a vocally challenged green dinosaur that only appears long after you finish the journey and shoot yourself out of a cannon.

If you didn't get it, I was describing Super Mario 64, the first game I ever played. How do you think I did?

How can a game this epic ever sound boring?

What's your favorite game? Can you make it sound terrible?

I Didn't Write an Acceptance Speech: Liebster Award Part Two

Well, I was nominated for a second Liebster Award. I'll take that as a sign that I'm doing something right...

Here's my first Liebster Post for those who care.

Thank you so much Shakibrya from Your Style Forecast!

Since I have already nominated 11 fantastic bloggers and posted 11 random (video game related) facts about myself, I'll just skip those parts.


Here are the questions from Shakibrya:
1. What’s the meaning behind your blog title?
I have always loved video games but everybody and their mother's mother has a video game blog. Mixing in fashion was my attempt to be creative. The name itself came from trial and error. (Many of my other choices were already taken).
2. Who would play you if your life was a movie?
I'd hope for Keke Palmer. But she would have to genuinely love games.

She's fashionable but does she play video games?

3. What song(s) would be the soundtrack of your life?
Paradise--Coldplay
Every Teardrop is a Waterfall--Coldplay
Everybody Loves Me--OneRepublic 
Made For You--OneRepublic
Must Be Dreaming--Imogen Heap
We Can Make the World Stop--The Glitch Mob
We Swarm--The Glitch Mob
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence--Utada Hikaru
LoveStoned/I Think That She Knows Interlude--Justin Timberlake
Serious Coin--Nostalgia 
The Hero--Nostalgia
And the Super Mario Galaxy 2 theme...

4. What are your favorite books to read?
Depends on my mood. Right now I'm into anything related to geishas (Memoirs of a Geisha; Geisha, A Life). Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America is on my reading wish list though.

There's an empty space on my bookshelf.
Only this can fill it.

5. Who is your style icon?
Also depends on my mood. Right now, it's Dita Von Teese. Bet you didn't see that coming. Just take the time to watch some of her interviews. You will not be disappointed.

I mean, look at her...Amazing.

6. Describe yourself in 3 words.
Fickle fashionable gamer. (I think I'm cheating, but oh well...)
7. What’s the most inspiring city to you fashion-wise?
Umm...London, I suppose. I've never thought about that before.
8. What is your dream job?
Terrible ad campaigns aside (read my rants here and here), I still dream of being a Localization Editor at Nintendo of America. Or Europe.
9. You are invited to The Oscars to present an award, what do you wear?
This or something extremely similar.

10. It’s your first date and you want to make an impression. What do you wear?
I would wear this skirt if I owned it. 

Any suitor must understand that
video games are my first love.

11. What are your favourite colours to wear?
Various shades of black, white, grey and beige. I've included a picture of my closet at school for reference...I do branch out, but my wardrobe is a work in progress.

Look closely and you might spot some bright blue and pink.

I just want to take this time to thank you--yes, YOU--for reading my almost random nonsense. It really means a lot to me.

Replay Value--Can You Play the Same Game Twice?

If you play a game more than one time, are you "going green"?

Everyone likes to talk about a game's replay value when discussing its pros and cons, but does anyone take the time to play a game twice?

I ask because I usually don't. No matter how awesome an adventure is, I rarely have the patience to sit through anything a second time. There are a few exceptions to my unwritten one-time-only rule. After my eight year struggle with Super Mario 64, I turned the game inside out, playing it multiple times in a row and mastering all of the sequence-breaking glitches. And when my first trip through Luigi's Mansion ended with only the second best rank, I immediately ran through the entire game again, just so that I could get enough money to afford the best house available.

But when it really comes down to it, I don't particularly care about a game's ability to be withstand a second playthrough...I automatically assume that after I finish a title for the first time, I'll never play it again.

Is replay value something you take into consideration when purchasing a game? Have you ever loved a game enough to play it more than once?

Super Mario 64 and Why It Shouldn't Take Eight Years to Collect 120 Stars

The cartridge that started an obsession.

Let's get personal. Rewind a few years back, to a time before I cared about the clothes I wore or even tried to call myself a gamer. I don't remember the year exactly but let's estimate that it was 1997, shortly after the release of the Nintendo 64.

I was lucky enough to grow up around video games. Everyone in my family played them and played them often. But the Nintendo 64 was the first system that I could call my very own. That grey piece of plastic means so much to me that I still have its original box (But this isn't just me being sentimental; I have a hard time throwing things away). Like a lot of people out there, I have a special attachment to my first game--Super Mario 64--as well, but for a less than normal reason.

It took me about 8 years to complete it.

No, that wasn't a continuous play-through (That would be about 15 stars a year; a ridiculous pace). I actually gave up on it shortly after getting to the "never-ending staircase" before Bowser in the Sky. Let's just say that the game was too much for my young mind to handle. It also gave me nightmares. Recurring ones, where Bowser and a pack Bom-ombs would climb out of my television and chase me around my house...

...Anyways, random childhood phobias aside, it wasn't that I didn't like the game, I just didn't like to play it. I wasn't even good at it. My mother was amazing though and since it was in my room, I just sat on my bed and watched her play for hours. But she never got all 120 stars. Eventually, we both set it aside and moved on to bigger but not necessarily better things. Super Mario 64 was pushed to the back of the collection.

Sometime around 2005, while the world was getting ready for the Wii (and complaining about its "Revolution" name change), I got the urge to take my Nintendo 64 out of its box in the closet. (Still don't know why. Nostalgia, maybe?) Not thinking too much about it, I popped in Super Mario 64 and finally took care of my unfinished business.

It was like a brand new, yet rough and outdated game. I not only got all the stars, but I even took the time to learn all the glitches. I love the game so much, I wrote a final essay about it for one of my college courses. It also covered Shakespeare, swans and Roger Ebert, but that's beside the point...

The point being: I was young and naive in '96. It took me 8 years to appreciate greatness.

Have you ever dropped a game you didn't like only to pick it back up and love it?

Virtual to Reality -- Princess Rosalina

Though Princess Rosalina's appearances in the Super Mario series have been limited, they've been notable. Nintendo's newest princess is not just a simple pallet swap, but a fully developed character with a detailed backstory (whether that story was actually interesting is up to you).

Rosalina's image is still a variation of the standard design set by Peach, but the final result is not as faithful to the original model as the concept art created during her development. Perhaps someone on the team realized that they didn't want to create another Daisy (or really, another Peach). Either way, Rosalina lost the puffy frills and bright color scheme and her dress started to reflect her more mysterious personality. It's also worth noting that her nails are tinted purple; a pretty insignificant detail that sets her further apart from the other princesses in the series.

But which one is better: Peach or Rosalina?

Wish List -- Piranha Plant Earrings

Nowhere near as painful as the real thing.

I have seen these everywhere around the internet. I believe it was love at first sight, especially because these bring back so many fantastic memories. Super Mario 64 was the very first game I ever played and I think these earrings are a perfect way to show my love for one of the most iconic enemies in the series (even though they're incredibly annoying and I really can't stand them).

Find them on Etsy.

Virtual to Reality -- Princess Peach

Updated: July 23, 2012
It's kind of interesting to think about how a fictional character's wardrobe could translate into real life situations (at least to me it is). Just like a superhero's tights wouldn't really help to strike fear into the hearts of evildoers in the real world, an actual princess probably wouldn't walk around in Princess Peach's puffy attire.
Over the years, the princess's standard clothing has been pretty constant in related artwork. The biggest changes made seem to be the size of the dark pink trim along the bottom hem of her skirt and the addition of two big paniers at her waist.

However, the damsel's early in-game appearances were quite different. In the original Super Mario Bros. game, Peach's dress was not pink but white with red/orange accents (not to mention the fact that she was a redhead and noticeably shorter than her hero). She picked up her current color scheme in Super Mario Bros. 2 but the princess's in-game model didn't truly match up with the artwork until Super Mario 64.

Recently, Princess Peach's character has become more of a clothes horse, changing outfits for sports related titles and Super Smash Bros. But her iconic pink dress remains a staple of the Super Mario series.

First Impressions -- New Super Mario Bros. 2 Gameplay Trailer

Let me start off by saying that it is CRIME that I don't own a 3DS by now. This wouldn't bother me as much if my DS Lite was good for something other than its fantastic paperweight function. Its tragic death broke my heart.

But turning to the topic at hand, this new trailer for New Super Mario Bros. 2 didn't impress me that much.  The main platforming portions were pretty straightforward and not too much different from anything I've seen before. Not that I expected Mario to do something epic like brandish an arm cannon or kill Goombas with laser beams...

...It just didn't grab my attention like I think it should.

Also, the coins? They don't just float around, waiting for you to collect them; they rain down from the sky. Or if the game is feeling a little more generous, it will literally throw them at you. Is the platforming that hard or do the developers seriously think the average player needs that much help? This plus the White Tanooki Suit (entire level invincibility power-up) could equal a really short playthrough.

Still, if I ever get the console, I probably won't count this one out. The graphics seem pretty solid and the classic Mario formula has never let me down before. In the end, it's not like Nintendo has to work hard to get money out of  me anyway.