Dr. Mario and America

When Jess moved in with me, she also brought a Wii with her, which was admittedly a huge selling point for me. She’s the best and I love her and everything but…you know…free Wii.

I was recently dabbling with the shop channel the other day and discovered a new wi-fi version of Dr. Mario. Best 10 bucks I ever spent. Usually, when I’m bored, I’ll crank out a post here on Brain Litter or find another way to contribute to society, but lately, I’ve just been killing viruses blue, red, and yellow style.

Since I’m playing human opponents online, that usually involves killing viruses at a slower rate than some Chinese guy named insert wacky Chinese letters here. Yep, that’s a new stereotype and you heard it here first: Chinese people are awesome at Dr. Mario.

Despite amassing heavy losses to our Asian friends, I have yet to kick this crippling addiction, and that is despite the fact that the version is flawed and could be better.
I can tell you at least five things that are wrong with the “new and improved” Dr. Mario on Wii which is also an explanation for what’s wrong with America today.

1.) Your online profile only keeps track of wins, not losses. Our generation was raised to think that we would all be winners, that’s why we all got trophies for playing soccer just for showing up. But you can’t have winners without losers. Losing is a part of life, it builds character. This coddling nonsense has to stop.

2.) Not only does it not keep track of losses, but the win counts stops at 9,999. Didn’t we learn this lesson from the millennium bug? What a total lack of foresight.

3.) Instead of pressing down to speed up the virus killing process you can now also press up to have the pill instantly drop to the bottom. Are we so impatient and is our time so valuable because we’re sitting around playing Dr. Mario that we can’t wait an extra .5 seconds for the pill to drop regularly. Patience is a virtue.

4.) They added a feature where the pill shows up semi-transparent at the bottom of the screen based on its current trajectory. Thanks Shigeru Miyamoto, I already love having my hand held like a big baby for not showing my losses.

5.) Velco Fly by ZZ Top is still not a selectable song to pick besides Fever and Chill. Unbelievable.

But like I said, it’s still Dr. Mario so it still kicks ass. I can still beat the butts off most Americans and Europeans as well. If you get this version and are up against Ben Dude, be afraid, be very afraid.