September 2nd, 2012 by Nickie Williams
How many of you out there have ever played a game and had a friend sit next to you and say:
“Oh! I know this game well- do you know about the hidden levels/cheats?”
Whether it’s a well known game like Mario or a lesser-known game, I’m sure it’s happened to you before because I know that it’s happened to me too. It’s just really annoying when you’re concentrating on the game and trying not to die when someone drops such an awful bombshell like that.
I was on the other end of the bombshell today when my boyfriend sat next to me and I was playing the original Super Mario Bros- the SNES version. And I’m playing along, running and jumping and coin-collecting when I bash through some bricks and begin to run along the top of the screen. I of course, think this is completely normal and my boyfriend is sitting there awe-struck as I come to a secret zone in the first world of the game. The warp zone at the end of World 1-2 is a well-known secret, or so I thought. My boyfriend on the other hand, had no clue that it existed and as I approached it, he saw for the first time the three green drainpipes with the numbers 2,3 and 4 sitting above them.
Of course, I choose World 4 and continue on my mushroom-squashing, turtle-kicking, fireball-shooting journey. And I sit there scratching my head about how on earth did he not know about the Warp Zone? So I proceed to ask him. He tells me how he knew about the Warp Zone in the GameBoy game of Super Mario World 2: 6 Golden Coins, but never this one. Which led to the conversation about how did I not know about the Warp Zone in that game?
It turns out that every gamer can learn something out about the games they claim to know backwards and yet still have something that they can learn about these old classics. Do you have a secret about a favourite game of yours? If so, what is it?
Game on Girl is a weekly podcast hosted by Regina McMenomy and Rhonda Oglesby. New episodes premiere every Thursday. We interview gamers and discuss games, gaming, and game culture. We also have a regular segment, Games in Pop Culture, where we talk about representations of games and gaming in mainstream media.
