Dr Mario; We’re addicted!

Today I dusted off my Wii, plugged it in, and turned it on. Why do I say dusted off? Well, in all honesty, I’ve not used it much recently – it’s not that I’ve got bored with it, I’ve just had so much to play on my PC and 360, that I’d neglected the smaller, tamer sibling.

As I’d not plugged it in for a while, I was hit by a wall of updates when I started it up, and I found in the Wii Shop, the new feature ‘WiiWare’ (think XBLA for the Xbox 360) – it’s basically cheap games, that take up maybe 50-100 megabytes, and, supposedly, are short or lack the features of boxed games, which you download to the Wii’s hard drive.

I decided to give one a try, and, when I saw ‘Dr. Mario and Germ Busters’ it sounded good – I remember playing a Dr. Mario game on my Nintendo 64, many, many years ago. It cost me £7, then I downloaded it and started playing.

Within minutes, I was addicted. Then, the addiction spread rapidly as my sister called in; then, so did a couple of my friends – pretty soon it was at pandemic level. We were trying out the different modes, playing against each other, taking it in turns, each of us itching to play the next game. One of my friends, who’d only called in to pick something up, ended staying for tea, and not leaving until 9:45 PM (having arrived at 4:00).

It got me thinking – what’s so addictive about the basic gameplay, and simple style of Dr. Mario? Then it hit me – just that! The basic gameplay and simple style make it so accessible, anyone can pick up, and within minutes, start playing. And once you understand the game, you see every time you make a mistake, you realise it, and you want to rectify it. That leads to you playing time and time again. Eventually I went on the Nintendo Wi-Fi multiplayer. My backside is still sore from all the kicking it got when I trying my hand against the Japanese community. Did I care? Did I get disheartened? Not in the slightest. In fact, each time I lost, my blood pressure rose and I wanted to win the next game even more. I couldn’t quit until I’d won, as much as for my dignity as anything else, to prove to myself I could correct the mistakes I made in the last round. Crazy really, isn’t it?

I think I’ve found a beauty in Dr. Mario – something that’ll keep me going, forcing myself to improve as I try new techniques, handle the game better and eventually start to win. Yet I know, I really shouldn’t be doing it. Oh well, it can be my dirty little secret.