mario was once a game somebody had to explain

there is something useful about reading a review of super mario bros. written before it became a foundational text. somebody had to sit down and explain the little guy. the mushroom kingdom did not arrive with a museum label.

the video game history foundation’s computer entertainer archive preserves the newsletter’s entire 1982–1990 run, with free access and a creative commons license. co-editors marylou badeaux and celeste dolan were covering games as things people might actually buy, rather than entries in a canon that had already been settled.

that distance matters. a contemporary review can restore the uncertainty that a retrospective smooths away: what needed explaining, what seemed impressive, what a reader was expected to know. even the photograph of mario on a television makes the game feel like an object in someone’s room again.

preservation gets more interesting when it keeps the conversation around a game, too. the cartridge tells us what was playable. the newsletter tells us what somebody thought was worth mailing.

image: archival photographs of co-editors marylou badeaux and celeste dolan, from computer entertainer, june 1987, p. 5, and february 1986, p. 1. scan: video game history foundation, cc by 4.0.