Turn of the Page: 'Super Mario'

by Elizabeth Ostrem and Kayla Werner

“Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America,” by video game aficionado Jeff Ryan, tells the history of the legendary video game company Nintendo and its most recognizable, overall-wearing mascot, Mario.

The book starts by tracing back to one of the earliest successes in video game history, Atari’s “Pong,” all the way to Nintendo’s latest advance, the Wii, and making note of games and gaming systems, successful and failed, throughout. Although the primary focus is on Nintendo, which originally started out as a small playing card manufacturer,  it also mentions the fierce rivalry it has between other companies (e.g. Sony, Sega and Microsoft) that still exists today.

Liz:

I found this book to be illuminating, albeit a bit tedious to read at times. There were so many things about Nintendo and Mario that I didn’t know before reading the book; for example, there was a movie released in 1993 called “Super Mario Bros” that entails Mario and brother Luigi having to, brace yourselves, rescue the princess and stop a tyrant from taking over the world.

I thought it was pretty well detailed although I would have liked it to have elaborated more on some of Nintendo’s other memorable games and figures (Kirby, Pokémon, etc.). I’ve played numerous Mario games before, so reading about the iconic plumber’s origin was something I found particularly interesting. If you’re not the kind of person that enjoys reading about history or just aren’t into video games, though, this book probably isn’t up your alley.

Kayla:

“Super Mario: How Nintendo conquered America” isn’t the most interesting book out there, but it does have its moments. I don’t suggest reading this book unless you like gaming because it’s about the history of Mario. There were some funny parts in the book, and reading about some of the games made me want to play them. The funny parts make up for some of the more boring parts, though. 

I have to say that it was an overall good book, but I honestly wouldn’t read it in my free time again. I do recommend it to those of you that like gaming and Mario.