Like Duck Hunt, Mario Bros. is another NES game that I first played in the early '90s in Georgia, USA (it may be the first video game I ever played, period). Whereas I enjoyed playing Duck Hunt, however, I never really cared much for Mario Bros. Increasing a high score has never been much of an incentive for me in video games, so when that's a game's main draw, especially one as repetitive as Mario Bros., it's hard for me to get into it. Duck Hunt shares this same issue, but give a kid a toy gun and they'll automatically be more interested in whatever's in front of them.
Every stage, or "phase", retains the same layout throughout the whole game, though the platforms occasionally change color every so often so you can kind of feel like you're progressing. As you advance, the game adds harder enemies, fireballs (fuck fireballs), and sometimes covers the platforms in ice to make moving around even more annoying. After Phase 11 the game starts to reuse various phases and it continues like that until Phase 99, in which the game goes to Phase 0 and starts over. No kill screen here!
Though I didn't play the game much, I do remember playing it with my mom and brother. It may be the first game where I learned to grief as I enthusiastically did everything in my power to get my brother killed, despite his protests. Along with that, my favorite things about the game were using the POW Blocks and running to one side of the screen and appearing at the opposite. I thought that was so cool.
I mistakenly thought my copy of the game was a dual game pak that included Duck Hunt, but that seems to have been Super Mario Bros. The version in my head apparently doesn't exist!
