If you love Mario Kart as much as we do here at Nintendo Life, one of the first things you’re probably going want to do when you make a trip to Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Hollywood is try out the themed ride.
Well, a word of warning – you’re going to need to pass a certain requirement first. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Hollywood park is apparently warning visitors with “large waistlines” that they may not be able to ride Mario Kart: Bower’s Challenge if they have a waistline of 40 inches or more.
It’s all tied to the overall safety of rides – with parks having to nowadays balance “accessibility with heightened safety requirements”. Rides are also equipped with tighter restraints now to ensure children are safely secured.
The Wall Street Journal was able to get a comment about all this from Premier Rides president Jim Seay – who reiterated how the “safety of the guests” is always the “first priority”:
“Our first priority is always the safety of the guests and the employees. We balance that with a very focused effort to make the rides as accessible as possible.”
According to a well-known Nintendo insider, another Mario sports game is already in development at Nintendo, Bandai Namco, and Now Entertainment. The insider continues noting that it’s “very likely” that this will be a new Mario Baseball game, which has been dormant since 2008 when Mario Super Sluggers was released via the Nintendo Wii. Unfortunately, this is the extent of the report other than a brief tease that it will have guest characters, and, specifically, Pac-Man. The report comes the way of Zippo Speaks, an insider and leaker who has proven reliable in the past, particularly when it comes to Nintendo and Persona. And for what it’s worth, they’ve relayed word of previous new installments in the Mario Sports series before they were officially announced.
“In today’s ‘no s**t’ news, Nintendo is preparing a brand new Mario Sports game, this time being developed by Bandai Namco and Now Entertainment. This is very likely to be a new installment in the Mario Baseball series, which hasn’t seen a new entry since 2008’s Mario Super Sluggers, though baseball did appear in Mario Sports Superstars for the 3DS in 2017.”
Given that tennis, golf, and soccer have already all got their new installments on Switch, it seems inevitable that baseball will now get its shine as the last core sport in the series not to be touched yet. In other words, in addition to a report, this is also just a safe prediction.
For now, take everything here with a grain of salt. This is all unofficial information, and even if it’s accurate, it’s also subject to change. This game could get cancelled or kicked down the road and all of sudden all this information will no longer be accurate or relevant, assuming it’s either in the first place.
As for Nintendo, it has not commented on this rumor and the speculation it has created. Typically, it does not comment on rumors or leaks or anything of the unofficial and speculative variety. There’s no reason to expect this pattern to break in this instance, but if it does, we will be sure to update the story accordingly.
As you might have already seen, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet comes with a certain glitch that could potentially be used to exploit the game in all sorts of ways. It’s essentially the Pokémon equivalent of Super Mario 64’s infamous Backwards Long Jump glitch – often abbreviated as BLJ.
This move – closely associated with speedrunning in the 1996 release Super Mario 64, was also spotted in Pokémon Legends: Arceus at launch, and now it’s been discovered in Scarlet and Violet. It’s as simple as mounting your legendary Koraidon or Miraidon and from there scaling a mountain. You could even potentially speedrun parts of the game. Here’s a look:
Centro Pokémon: “A glitch has been discovered in #ScarletViolet that allows scaling early. Normally Koraidon/Miraidon will slip if you try to jump and climb a slope without having the ability, but it turns out it’s as simple as jumping back so it doesn’t slip.”
If this does at all concern Game Freak or The Pokémon Company, they could issue a patch. For now, though – it’s in the game, and you can probably give it a go yourself, provided you’ve got a copy of Scarlet or Violet.
Have you tried out this infamous Super Mario 64 move in the new Pokémon games? Let us know in the comments.
The internet’s response to the trailer for The Super Mario Bros. Movie was pretty darn good… except for the much-awaited debut of Chris Pratt as Mario. The response to his choice of voice (which is, well, Chris Pratt with a bit of a Brooklyn accent) was lukewarm, at best, not helped by Pratt’s own lukewarm intro to the trailer in which he said he loved stomping Koopas in the arcade game — which, by the way, is impossible; they didn’t have Koopas in the arcade game, actually.
But it turns out that a lot of people out there think that Mario sort of sounds like… Linda Belcher from Bob’s Burgers.
You can’t unhear it, be warned:
We already know what you’re going to say. “It was just one line!” “Pratt sounds FINE, you’re all just having a slow news day.” “You’re just jumping on the Pratt-hating bandwagon for clicks.” “I’M VERY TIRED OF HEARING ABOUT THE STUPID MARIO MOVIE.” Listen, we get it. One line sounding a bit like another cartoon character? Not the worst thing in the world. And Pratt probably sounds different in the rest of the movie. Probably.
But if we have to watch one and a half hours of Linda Belcher inside a short, pudgy plumber’s body? We’re going to have a very weird time at the cinema.
What do you think? Does this ruin Mario for you? Is Pratt’s voice fine, actually? Are you more likely to watch the movie now? Tell us in the comments.
Information about The Super Mario Movie — you know, the one with Chris Pratt — has been slimmer than Bowser’s chances with Peach, but that’s all about to change. This week, Nintendo has announced a special movie-related Nintendo Direct, meaning that we’ll hopefully get to hear Pratt’s take on the plumber, sans Charles Martinet’s iconic voice. Also, what the movie is actually about. Maybe.
Until Thursday, 6th October at 1:05pm Pacific Time (when the Direct is scheduled to take place), all we have to go on is… this poster. Let’s take a look:
Image: Nintendo
It may not look like much, but *cracks knuckles* we’re used to wringing out every bit of information from what looks like a dry information sponge, so trust us: We got this. Let’s-a-go.
Toads
The first thing you’ll notice — other than the back of Mario — is the sheer number of Toads in both the foreground and the background. Seriously, so many Toads. The more you look, the more there are.
Now, this could mean one of two things:
The movie is set in the Mushroom Kingdom, and is full of Toads, all the time
The movie has a bit where Mario goes to Toad Town in the Mushroom Kingdom
Image: Nintendo
We’re inclined to believe the second one, partly because we don’t know if we could stomach two hours of Toad stuff, partly because we highly doubt that Illumination would want to make a movie that’s just a man talking to weird little mushroom men for two hours, but mostly because of Captain Toad (read on for our thoughts on him).
But our main question is: Do all the Toads have different voices? Did they cast loads of actors for the Toad population, or just one, like how the games do it? We don’t know if we’re prepared for Toads to all sound different… or worse, like a bunch of actors all doing a Toad impression.
Captain Toad
Okay, so the Toad who looks like he’s showing Mario around looks a lot like Captain Toad. He might be — he’s got the bag and the sense of adventure — but he hasn’t got the hat. He could just be a normal fun-guy.
But the fact that he’s seemingly giving Mario a tour is important. That means that it’s Mario’s first time here in Toad Town, right? Which means that there is at least some part of the movie where Mario is not in Toad Town. Phew.
Also, we can probably safely assume that this Toad is the one voiced by Keegan-Michael Key. We’re trying to imagine it. Hm. And… he has teeth. Have Toads always had teeth?
But let’s turn our attention to what (Captain) Toad has on his backpack: Camping gear. A blanket, a mug, rope, a frying pan, and a lantern are all visible on his tiny backpack, which is the size of his entire body (seriously, Mario, you could offer to help). Looking at the background, and following Mario’s gaze up to the top of that intimidating mountain, makes us think that Mario and (Captain) Toad are about to attempt to scale said mountain. And what’s at the top?
Princess Peach is back
Image: NintendoImage: Nintendo
It’s only Peach’s Castle! The iconic pink-and-white chateau is placed right at the top of a colossal hill as a clear focal point for the poster, and we know what that means: It’s the goal. Maybe for the whole movie, maybe just for this chapter of the movie, but either way, Mario’s gonna get up there. With the help of (Captain) Toad.
We can also see the stained glass Peach window right in the centre, which hopefully implies that ol’ Peachy is going to look recognisably Peachsome in this movie, and won’t have a Princess Fiona-from-Shrek-style makeover to make her look more human. It’s always been a bit creepy that she has somewhat human proportions in comparison to Mario’s diminutive and cartoonish appearance. But that’s probably the point.
A mix of art styles
Image: Nintendo
Although most of the art in this poster looks (unsurprisingly) a lot like animation studio Illumination’s other work — the soft, vibrant cartoonish roundness of Despicable Me, in particular — the movie looks like it’ll mix it up a bit. In the lower left, we can see an antiques stall, with voxel versions of old-school Mario items, like a P-Switch and the infamous axe that dropped Bowser into the lava.
Up top, the cartoonish stuff gives way to some more photorealistic shrubbery and grass, looking a lot like one of those “Mario made in Unreal Engine” videos we see all the time.
References galore
A quick rundown of references we saw — see if you can find them too:
Toads in peril
Perhaps the most easy-to-spot of the easter eggs (not counting the antiques shop) is the multitude of Toads in some sort of peril. It looks like they’re all trying to ascend the hellish platforming level that will get Mario and his Toad friend up to Peach’s castle, and unsurprisingly, they’re not doing great. We can see a Toad falling off the donut blocks, a Toad who’s stranded after going through a pipe, and plenty of Toads that just look like they’re stuck somewhere they shouldn’t be.
If this were a video game, we’d assume that Mario’s job was to rescue all those Toads. But since this is a movie, we assume that they’re just going to be comic relief. Hope you like slapstick!
Yoshi?
Image: Nintendo
If you spotted that Yoshi egg hidden at the back of the antiques shop, you’re no doubt asking the same question we are: Is Yoshi coming to this movie?
And, if so… who’s voicing him? Yoshi is usually pretty taciturn other than saying “Yoshi!” and “mlem!” but we wouldn’t be surprised if they pulled a Chris Pratt on Yoshi, too. Who do we think they’d hire? Our money is on JK Simmons.
In-world currency
Everything in this town costs coins. That means that coins — which we see a Toad carrying, and they’re massive — are the official currency of Mushroom Kingdom, just like in the games. Do they disappear when Mario touches them? Is he able to fit them in his pocket so he can buy stuff? And why is everything so expensive? 4 coins for a cupcake is insane.
Super Nintendo World tie-in?
That jumble of pipes looks a lot like Super Nintendo World, the Mario-flavoured theme park nestled inside Universal Studios. Nintendo has been pushing Super Nintendo World really hard recently, despite the fact that one of them is in Japan and no one is allowed to fly to Japan yet for COVID reasons, and the other one in the USA isn’t built yet.
It seems odd that a movie based on a series like Super Mario would feature a reference to a theme park that’s also based on Super Mario, but maybe this movie is also an advert for the theme park. Somehow.
Shoe upgrade
Image: Nintendo
Mario’s outfit is very high resolution, isn’t it? Check out that denim. Look at those seams and creases. Oof. That’s nice.
But there is one big upgrade we’re not sure about. Mario’s shoes have always been very cartoony — just big brown shapes on his feet. We’ve always assumed that they’re slip-ons. He’s a busy lad. But here we can see that he has laces. WHAT DOES IT MEAN?! Probably nothing. It’s just different.
Mario’s bum
Mario’s bum looks bad. It looks wet and lumpy, like a bad omelette. He’s had a better bum in the past! Maybe they had to tone it down so it didn’t dominate conversation like Mario’s nipples always do?
A guess at the plot
Image: Nintendo
If we had to guess, we’d say that Mario has to climb up to the castle for some reason. It doesn’t look like the castle is up there by accident — like a horrible earthquake or some kind of Bowser-related incident — but it’s clearly a perilous trip, with plenty of Toads falling off all the way up. Why they haven’t built a sensible staircase is beyond us.
But we’d guess that Mario’s adventure up to the castle is but a small segment of the plot. We can’t imagine two hours of Toad-themed Mario platforming would be particularly interesting. It mostly just makes for a cool poster!
We also think that this scene probably takes place early on, since Mario isn’t yet accompanied by Luigi or Donkey Kong.
“Only in theatres”
Seems like it’s not coming to streaming services immediately, like many movies during the pandemic. Also in the fine print, we can see that the film is not rated, and that it’s probably also coming in 3D, since the “Real D” logo is on the bottom — they’re a company known for their 3D projection technology.
What’s missing
Well, we know Mario (Chris Pratt) and Toad (Keegan-Michael Key) are in the movie, and we now know more or less what they look like (although it’s not a huge surprise). But we haven’t seen Luigi (Charlie Day), Bowser (Jack Black), Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy), or Donkey Kong (Seth Rogen) yet — and if Luigi isn’t accompanying his brother here, when exactly does he turn up?
So many questions. And not many answers, unless the question is “will there be Toads?”
Well, that’s about all the nuggets we could mine out of this particular vein of Super Mario Movie info, but we’re curious if you think there’s anything we’ve missed. Tell us in the comments if you’ve managed to squeeze out anything new!
Do you think this is a good movie poster? (746 votes)
A British media conglomerate, Sky, has just made a complete ass of itself on Twitter, after attempting to hang wiv da cool kidz while promoting its new partnership with David Beckham’s eSports company, Guild. Asking followers of the [checks notes] technical support account to tweet a screenshot of their “favourite childhood #IndieGame,” they offered to start with a picture of…Altered Beast. That infamously indie game released by Sega in 1988.
The formerly Murdoch-owned network of TV channels and broadband supply is now in the hands of Comcast, and it seems this corporate background has somewhat skewed their vision of independence. Replies to the tweet are delighting in suggesting alternative childhood indie favorites, like Halo, Super Mario 64, and Skyrim.
Others have helpfully suggested Dune II, Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and one person dug up an obscure title called Tetris.
The support account has, in the last few minutes (some three hours after tweeting) started responding to the sarcastic replies with protests that they meant “#RETROGAMES.” But it’s far too late for that.
I too have ventured a suggestion.
Quite why a support account was the source for this silliness isn’t clear, but they’re now frantically trying to own the mistake in between explaining to customers why their internet might be down. Which is a very peculiar situation to have found themselves in. And now we’re making it worse for them by posting their mistake on a widely read international website.
Don’t feel bad for them. You should see how much they charge for their crappy TV and internet. Well, just imagine Comcast charges and service, and you’re most of the way there.
To their credit, they’ve yet to delete the tweet. And, you know, I’ve now heard of Guild for the first time, so maybe something’s working?
Back in February, it was discovered Illumination’s Super Mario Bros. movie would be getting a toy line created by Jakks Pacific.
At the time, Amazon Canada listed a 5-inch Toad figure and a ‘Mini-World’ van playset, but no other details were attached. Now, months later – Amazon has some new listings for Mario, Luigi and Bowser. It seems the Bowser figure will be slightly different in size and weight.
There are still no images, but according to each description, these action figures will contain “premium details and textures”, “up to 12 points of hidden articulation”, a “movie accessory” and come in collectors packaging. Mattel also appears to be working on Super Mario movie products – with an Amazon listing in August suggesting a Mario movie UNO set is on the way. Learn more in our previous story.
Super Mario fans will finally get a first look at the Super Mario Bros. animated movie in a special teaser trailer premiering at New York Comic-Con on October 6th (aka next week). Mario’s voice actor Chris Pratt has already seen it and said he was “blown away”. Earlier this week, a blank but verified Super Mario Movie Twitter account was also spotted, and it’s already got more than 15K followers.
Would you be interested in Super Mario movie toys and action figures? What do you think they’ll look like? Comment below.
The currently untitled Super Mario Bros. movie from Nintendo and Illumination will unsurprisingly be accompanied by some tie-in figures according to some listings that appear to have gone up a bit ahead of schedule. Figures that we know about already based on these listings include one each for Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Bowser, and Toad. The only catch is that images pertaining to these listings haven’t actually leaked just yet, so we don’t know exactly what these new figures will look like.
These Super Mario figures come from Jakks Pacific based on the placeholder image used on Amazon with each of the listings for Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Bowser, and Toad all lumped under the “Super Mario Movie” category. A couple of limited details available through the listings confirm things like the fact that the products will feature “up to 12 points of hidden articulation” and that they all come with a “movie accessory.”
It’s evident that the listings are not entirely correct in their details, however, so it remains to be seen exactly what each toy will consist of. Most of them, for example, say that they were supposed to be released today on October 1st save for the Bowser figure which says it’ll be out on February 26th. Another minor detail shows that the Bowser figure weighs more than the rest of them, but we’d expect nothing less from Mario’s stout antagonist.
Jakks already has a lineup of Mario figures on its site that aren’t tied to the movie, so it’s not too surprising to see that the toy company is making these. It’d be difficult to believe that Nintendo would let the Super Mario movie go by without some kinds of tie-in products like these, and one would imagine that we’ll see much more in the way of this kind of thing between now and the time the movie releases on April 7th.
That release date is the second one the Mario movie got following its delay that pushed it out of 2022. The initial release date announcement was accompanied by cast details including the confirmation that Chris Pratt would voice Mario. We still haven’t actually seen our first look at the movie nor have we heard Pratt’s version of Mario yet, but that’ll hopefully change on October 6th whenever the first teaser trailer is revealed.
It’s been a long time since we last heard news of Illumination’s Mario movie. After taking the internet by storm with its, shall we say, interesting lead cast, we heard in April that the plumber’s return to the big screen was to be pushed back to 2023. A cause for celebration for some, this release date delay might have been the perfect opportunity to provide some more information about the upcoming animated feature; but whenever we have gone looking for news it appears that all updates were moved to another castle.
That’s until now (well, almost). As noted yesterday by @DespicableOutof on Twitter, the movie now has an initial listing on the Illumination Studios Paris website, meaning we might finally have an idea of what this ‘Mario Movie’ will be called. After months of fumbling around for the right answer – is it The Mario Movie? Super Mario? Crouching Plumber Hidden Bowser? – it seems that Illumination Studios has settled on a name, and what a board meeting it must have been to come up with this one.
According to the site, we will no longer be foolishly dubbing the upcoming feature ‘The Mario Movie’, oh no. It seems that Illumination is pushing the boat out much further as they appear to have called the film – wait for it – Super Mario Bros.
Now we are just as surprised as you are that the team behind such titles as Despicable Me and, erm, Despicable Me 2, would make such an original naming decision with their newest Nintendo IP, but hey, at least everyone will know on what the film is based.
Of course, this title is neither officially confirmed by an Illumination statement, nor by the Big N itself, so the chances of finally seeing Chris Pratt starring in ‘Plumb and Plumber’ has not been rendered impossible just yet.
At the end of the day, selling a big name like Mario was always going to require a rather on-the-nose marketing campaign, and if that is the cause for one of the most predictable titles we’ve seen in a while then so be it. An original title was never anything more than a pipe dream.
What title would you choose instead of Super Mario Bros.? Get punny in the comments below!
For those who play video games, 2007 is often considered one of the best years of the medium. It was a year of bangers: Microsoft had Crackdown and Halo 3, Nintendo took Super Mario to the Galaxy, Call of Duty blew the world open by going modern, and so on. It cannot be understated how much that year just kicked ass for games, and in the upper echelon at the time was 2K Games’ Bioshock, which is now 15 years old as of today.
Developed by 2K Boston (later Irrational Games) and the now defunct 2K Australia, and directed and written by Boston’s Ken Levine, BioShock is a first-person shooter set in the 1960s. After surviving a plane crash, the protagonist Jack discovers the underwater city of Rapture, built as a haven for the elites of society by its creator, business magnate Andrew Ryan. The city was the perfect utopia, but everything eventually went to hell once a gene-altering substance called ADAM was discovered.
Through the use of serums known as “Plasmids,” everyone in the city got superpowers. Thus, a class war ensued: on one side, Ryan commanded his superhuman, diving suit-wearing Big Daddies to protect young girls called Little Sisters as they harvested ADAM from dead bodies. And on the opposing side was Atlas, a man who convinced the now poor citizens of Rapture to rise up against Ryan, with both sides using Plasmid-wielding citizens dubbed Splicers to wage skirmishes across the city.
Image: Irrational Games/2K
Originally an Xbox 360 and Windows exclusive, BioShock released to critical acclaim, with particular praise for its atmosphere and narrative, which incorporated ideas from author George Orwell and most notably philosopher Ayn Rand. By the end of its debut month, it sold 490,000 copies, and by March 2010, it’d had sold 4 million across all systems. (In 2008 and 2009, it was ported respectively to the PlayStation 3 and Mac.)
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For a time, BioShock fever swept across the industry. It was inducted into the Smithsonian’s exhibit devoted to the art of video games, and has been hailed as one of the best games of all time. Along with the original Mass Effect and 2008’s Braid, the game’s been used as examples when arguing the merit of video games as an art form. And it spawned two sequels: 2010’s BioShock 2 from 2K Marin was a direct sequel wherein players controlled a Big Daddy named Sigma a decade after the original game, granted the ability to use Plasmids and search for his missing Little Sister. Conversely, Infinite by the returning Irrational starred private eye Booker DeWitt endeavored to ferry the reality-warping Elizabeth Comstock out of the sky city of Columbia in 1912. Both games would receive narrative DLC, but it was the “Burial at Sea” expansion for Infinite that definitively linked it with the story of the original game.
In the years since BioShock went quiet, there’ve been efforts outside of 2K and Levine to try and go for the same narrative highs of that first game. You can see its bones in other games like Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us, Machine Games’ Wolfenstein reboot, and Arkane’s Prey or Dishonored without much effort. (Infinite is technically the first Dad Game, as it released only a handful of months before the original Last of Us.) Cyberpunk 2077, which arguably features better combat and immersive sim elements than BioShock, has a slice of the period piece shooter inside of it. You could probably even argue that something like Disco Elysium or Citizen Sleeper has also been influenced by it.
Image: 2K Games
But for the franchise itself, it currently just…exists. Part of the issue is a lack of a follow up: a fourth entry is said to be in the works, but due to development issues that just plague the entire franchise, it feels more of an idea than reality. And though he left the series behind after 2013, Ken Levine hasn’t been able to release a game within the past nine years. All fans have been left to do is replay the old games, maybe discuss how time has treated the sequels in particular. Netflix has plans on making the first game into a film, something originally in the cards back in 2008, but it remains to be seen if the streamer will actually be able to make that a reality. But the real question about BioShock’s future, if it even has one, is what can it still bring to the table that the original trilogy didn’t already cover?
Let us know your thoughts on the BioShock franchise in the comments below. Think we could do with another entry, or should we kindly let it be harvested?
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel and Star Wars releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about House of the Dragon and Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
