It's-a Mario World: Super Educational

by Kenneth Caldwell { Nov 14th 2008 at 11:45PM }

Greetings, Mario fanatics young and old! Finally, after innumerable requests and a handful of death threats, we are responding to high demand for a gallery wholly dedicated to educational Mario games. Awesome, let's learn! So, what is it Mario is going to be teaching us anyway?

As it turns out, quite a lot. His heroic deeds over the years have promoted such abstract virtues as bravery, selflessness and chivalric duty, but at the end of the day, hands-on skills and craftiness are to be rewarded. Rarely has Mario demonstrated his alleged ability to install and repair plumbing (aside from setting flame to the occasional pipe-dwelling piranha plant), and one must wonder whether he ever spends time away from his eccentric and widely-varied hobbies, like being an athlete in virtually any sport and solving picture logic puzzles. Does Mario know anything worth teaching? Ride a hyperlink over to our new gallery stuffed with pedagogy and find out! Oh, and bring a notepad.

It's-a Mario World is a weekly feature in which the ubiquity of Nintendo's flagship character is celebrated: We'll incessantly ruminate about mustache wax, debate the curious whereabouts of the princess and covet the luminous power stars strewn about the galaxy. Check back here every Friday to find out what strange and wonderful thing has got us tipping our caps.

Tags: education, edutainment, its-a-mario-world, joystiqfeatures, mario-brothers, mario-is-missing, marios-time-machine, super-mario-bros

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

TX2 @ Nov 15th 2008 12:05AM

Didn't WayForward Start out with the Educational stuff?

TX2 @ Nov 15th 2008 12:05AM

Didn't WayForward Start out with the Educational stuff?

hvnlysoldr @ Nov 15th 2008 1:12AM

Poor Farnsworth won't be able to type with Mario too.

Metayoshi @ Nov 15th 2008 1:31AM

I had Mario is Missing. I never really played that game to learn anything, but it was interesting seeing Luigi get his first starring role.

My cousin also had Fun with Numbers and Fun with Letters, which were pretty fun educational games.

I played a little bit of Mario Teaches Typing once, and wow, I sucked at typing back then.

luis @ Nov 15th 2008 8:19PM

If anyone has Call of Duty World at War on the Wii.
My friends code is: 068887112844.
And I would like to get some friends to play with Thank you all.

Mr Khan @ Nov 15th 2008 12:04PM

Oh Nintendo, what happened to you? You used to cater to the 101 year olds

Now your upper limit is only 95...

Zacka @ Nov 15th 2008 1:53PM

Eh, I agree with all of the choices except Mario Paint.
I mean, its not the best choice of a game, but its definetly better then ZOMG GUISE MARIOS MISSING SKOOL EDUCASHUN YHEY

rengifo @ Nov 16th 2008 1:12AM

just thought I'd mention that there is a sequel to Mario Paint for the short lived Nintendo 64DD.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Artist

Antonio @ Nov 17th 2008 1:03PM

I gotta cry foul on dissing Mario Paint. I derived a good deal of fun making some tunes and drawings with the program. Even managed to make a decent animation one time. The limitations of storage at the time prevented it from reaching its full potential though. There are lots of Mario Paint compositions on Youtube. Of course it doesn't hold up too well against the much more robust apps out there today, but at the time it was unique and fun.

Kenneth Caldwell @ Nov 17th 2008 5:53PM

In no way was it my intention to criticize Mario Paint, despite the fact that it is lumped in with a group of subpar Mario titles in this gallery. In fact, I have nothing but praise for its the way it exercises creativity, and I think more games in the same vein should follow, if not a true sequel. Wii Music is a bit different.

I love that YouTube is saturated with Mario Paint creations. Talk about a game with longevity.