New Super Mario Bros band-aids

My Mum used to tell a story about one time, when I was a small boy, she bought some 'Mr Men' sticking plasters.  Apparently I would then, until said plasters were used up, demand one to be stuck on any scrape, no matter how microscopic (or, to be honest, imaginary), on the basis that I wanted 'Mr Bump' stuck to my grievous injury.


To prove that more than 30 years of so-called 'growing up' have had no noticeable impact, I recently saw (and immediately bought) New Super Mario Bros 'Know your Enemies' plasters -

That's my daughter's hand on the left.  I think she wants a plaster

They are packed into a handy metal tin and come in three different types, each showing one of Mario's mortal enemies - Bullet Bills, Piranha Plants and Goombas.  

While typing this post, my daughter came up to me complaining of a near-invisible cut to one of her toes.  A little bit sheepishly, she asked for a Mario plaster (Bullet Bills).  Given my own history, I could hardly refuse.....

NGamer Mario Magnets!

This month's NGamer magazine includes a whole bunch of New Super Mario Bros Wii magnets (and a Nintendo 2010 year planner, if that floats your boat). I don't think I'm NGamer's target market (in fact, I think I am old enough to be the target audience's Dad) but I am a sucker for a magazine freebie.  My favourite freebie of all-time was a Nintendo pack of cards from, I think, the Official Nintendo Magazine, which had a different old-skool Nintendo character on each card.  I used them as flash cards to teach my then 2-year old daughter the Nintendo pantheon.  Well, you've got to start them somewhere.

Anyway, the magnets allow you to recreate 2D platforming fun on any metallic flat surface.  The magnets aren't that strong, so they wouldn't be any good at fixing one thing to another thing but that's hardly the point, is it?

Here is our effort -

Wii Games round-up at Eurogamer Expo

The Wii games were the ugly ducklings of the event.  Games are, or should be, all about the gameplay but at the Expo the Wii games were in direct comparison with HD PS3 and 360 games and they suffered by this comparison.

I don't play Wii games in public (as you look like an idiot) but I looked at all that were there.  The New Super Mario Bros Wii game looked interesting (a 2D Mario game is a novelty for non-handheld console these days and, I suppose, should be applauded.

Wheelspin, the Archer MacLean-developed title looked very fast and good for a Wii game and fills the 'next-gen F-Zero' hole that Nintendo have left.

'Good for a Wii game' has to be the the most damning faint praise  that you can think of, incidentally.