Let us now stray a bit from my usual updates. This time Id like to take a close look at a game franchise, perhaps the most popular game franchise of all time,

Super Mario Bros. , in my opinion not so super anymore.

Since 1981s Donkey Kong, Mario has remained essentially the same,

short, pudgy, and Italian.

He's the most recognizable and prolific video game character ever, he's appeared in more the 200 games, and is more popular worldwide than even Mickey Mouse yet...has anyone ever questioned why?

Now going on more two and a half decades later ( that's 25 years in case your wondering ) what has Nintendo done with the character besides whore him to every type of game genre and merchandise opportunity?

Nothin,Mario is just Mario, in fact Nintendo has done everything to keep his character boring bland and basic, even going so far as to make an official comment about Mario ( and Luigi ) not even having a last name.

What kind of cop out is that other than pathetic? Mario's character is so shallow and simple that he makes Pacman seem like a politician.

Have you ever considered the plot to any Mario game? Any game out of the 500 million that they've produced. There so flat and uninspired I can sum it up in 3 words , Bowser kidnaps Peach. There you go...that's the entire 25 year history of supposedly "Super" Mario. Seriously how creative is that? Can you believe they actually pay a team of professionals to come up with that and list them in the credits using a fancy title like development senior analyst, and how much do they get paid? A helluva lot more than your average college grad makes working at the local box factory.

My point is not just Mario but the entire series and its characters of Mario games and spin offs are so grossly overrated, its sickening. Just the main games in the series have out sold every other series in the history of gaming. May I ask why?

Because parents will buy anything Nintendo stamps with that overweight plumber's face. Nintendo has a grip on every youths mind this side of the moon. They see Mario and it's like an instant hypnotism and the parents buy it cuz its certified friendly.

With Mario,Nintendo has a formula that is so cut and paste unoriginal, that it even makes a vcr manual seem like poetry.

Now all things considered, the plot of a video game has never really been the biggest focus but in the past 10 years we've come to respect games as a truely creative work of entertainment, gaming storylines have taken on a whole new depth and variety. Nintendo refuses to evolve the series into what could be a unique experience. I'm not saying that Mario shouldn't be strictly for kids, but a fairy tale story can still be well written and intelligent.

Mario throws everything out the window in favor of Game play. Granted game play is the most important factor of a game but, in order to be regarded as "Super" meaning superior or superb, it has to embrace all aspects of design including story, and character development.

With this years E3, yet again more Mario games have been introduced which will no doubt sell up the wazoo, but they are the same cookie cuter, crap.

S Mario Galaxy became game of the year in 2008, as voted upon by Gamespot.com. Yes the Wii is an innovate console and game play seems to be living up to that reputation, and the art direction is wonderful, but a little more story wouldn't kill it.

After the 1993 release of Mario World the series has been neglecting two player capability.

Mario is such a blatant stereotype. The original design of Mario was based on graphical limitations, they couldn't design a mouth so they gave him what looked like a mustache, they couldn't define his body parts so they used a strong contrast of red and blue overalls and shirt and added a cap to avoid designing a hair**** and white gloves to show arm movements.

As a further cover up they included a large nose to depict him as being human, and if you don't believe all that just look it up. Well all of that worked out conveniently but what about when the graphics were no longer a limiting factor? Did they choose to redesign the character? No, instead they kept him in the same ridiculous clothing. Mario was without a voice or even dialogue until SM 64 when they decided making him say stereotypical catch phrases with a bad accent would be a good idea.

How about the infamous S Mario Bros 2? Boy did they screw that up. Yeah the game play is great, but it wasn't even supposed to be a Mario game. In fact is was based off of a concept from Fuji television.That's right Mario had nothing to do with the games theme and setting, instead they took a previously developed game,( Doki Doki Panic )and edited the sprites to make it look like the characters were from the Mario universe. Can you say rip off? and to top it all off they came up with the lamest excuse to explain the story, the whole thing was a gawd dam dream. Yep everything that happened, forget it cuz it never really happened, Mario just dreamt it. Ha ha the jokes on you.

Thanks a lot Nintendo, way to ruin things for us. Well that plot would have made since considering the game was originally titled dream factory, but in this case it's totally unecessary. The real story is that SMB 2 was deemed as being too difficult for American audiences so they decided to scrap it. Oops oh well.

Now before you get all worked up ( or maybe its too late ) I don't hate the Mario games,( In fact I think Mario 1-4 are great I only hate Nintendo's lack of production effort and lazy approach to using the characters, when it comes to the Mario series. Mario had such potential for expansion and development.

Now some will argue, why fix something that's not broken? It's simple everything good deserves to be made better, and everything great can still be improved upon, that's what development is all about, but Nintendo seems to ignore this.

I'm sure they aimed to achieve greater heights but, failed in the writing department. For instance,how incredibly weak and insignificant was the ending of SM 64 ?

How many times are they going to recycle the same ideas, Mario has to find X amount of Stars / Shines /Magic wands before he can rescue Peach or Daisy or is it Toadstool...whatever the hell her name is, since they cant quite seem to decide.

How many more times are they going to say they were on a vacation when the Princess gets kidnapped? Honestly I give SM Sunshine some credit for at least including the imposter Mario, but they quickly ruined that by revealing his true identity.

And another thing why is it Nintendo refuses to explain the origin of Princess? How is it that she's royalty of a kingdom of species that have mushroom heads yet she is clearly human? Any explanation? Of course not Nintendo just expects you to by their product, regardless of plot holes.

Another problem I have, is that the Mario franchise spawns characters that they end up dropping such as the Koopa Kids. What the hell happened to them after SMW ? ,and why are they suddenly being included in "New Super Mario Bros Wii"?

Speaking of Koopas, where did Bowser Jr. pop out of? How is Bowser reproducing? Is there a female Bowser that we're not aware of, or is Bowser hiding something from us?

Don't even get me started on how they've outcasted Luigi.

You may say I'm over thinking a franchise intended for children but once more I tell ya theres no excuse for redundancy.

My intention is not to hate but merly to point out what is inexcusably poor. Please share your thoughts on both the future of the Mario franchise and its past.