How to play Mario Bros. online
- Mario (Player 1): left and right arrow keys to run, Space to jump
- Luigi (Player 2): F and H to run, A to jump
- Choose a game variation: F11 (the console’s Select switch)
- Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
- Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0–9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0–9 loads it
Jump while running to leap forward, or jump while standing still to go straight up. The difficulty switches are not used in this game.
Gameplay
Pests crawl out of the pipes and walk along the floors. You cannot beat them by jumping on them. Instead, stand underneath and jump to punch the floor, which knocks the pest onto its back. Then climb up and kick it off the floor before it gets back on its feet. Each pest behaves differently:
- Shellcreeper (a turtle): one punch flips it over.
- Sidestepper (a crab): the first punch only makes it angry and faster; the second one flips it.
- Fighterfly: it hops, so you can only flip it when it is touching the floor.
- Slipice: it turns floors to ice. Punch it from below, or kick it while it is melting.
Fireballs also appear in some variations; jump over them or move to another floor. The POW switch between the two lowest floors hits every pest on screen at once. You can use it three times before it disappears, and a new one arrives every ten rounds. Each time you kick a pest away, a bonus wafer comes out of a pipe. Now and then the pests vanish and a coin phase begins: the screen fills with coins and you have 15 seconds to grab as many as you can. You earn an extra life every 20,000 points.
| Action | Points |
|---|---|
| Kicking a pest off a floor | 800 |
| Punching a Slipice | 500 |
| Bonus wafer | 800 |
| Bonus coin | 800 |
Game variations
There are eight games. Odd numbers are for one player and even numbers for two. Games 1 to 4 give you five lives and games 5 to 8 give you three. Games 1, 2, 5 and 6 include fireballs, while games 3, 4, 7 and 8 leave them out. Game 3 (one player, five lives, no fireballs) is the gentlest place to start.
Tips
- Kick quickly. A flipped pest soon recovers, so don’t punch it over unless you can reach it in time.
- Punch crabs twice. The first hit on a Sidestepper only speeds it up. Be ready for it before you land the second.
- Keep the POW for emergencies. You only get three uses, and a new switch comes just once every ten rounds. Save it for when several pests are about to reach you.
- Watch your partner. In two-player games, the other player can punch a flipped pest back onto its feet just before you kick it.
History
Nintendo’s arcade Mario Bros. was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi and reached North American arcades in March 1983. It gave Mario’s brother Luigi his first appearance and made the two of them plumbers. Nintendo licensed the home console rights outside Japan to Atari, which released this 2600 version in 1983. It was programmed by Dan Hitchens and sold well, with about 1.59 million cartridges reported. Like most home versions, it leaves out the falling icicles of the arcade game. Mario Bros. was also released for the Atari 5200 in 1984, and later for the Atari 7800 and the Atari 8-bit computers.
