The Marriage Test

So...I've been telling everyone about how Brad and I have really been testing our relationship and marriage lately. Seriously, this isn't for people in a rocky relationship. Though I would recommend it as a test to see if you're ready for marriage.

What am I talking about?

What else - the new Super Mario Brothers (for Wii) game.

Bet you didn't see that one coming. Well, Brad and I both loved Mario games on Nintendo growing up, so when this new version of the classic came out we had to have it. It has all the familiar characters (Koopa, bosses at the end of every castle, Princess Peach needing to be saved AGAIN, Mario in red and Luigi in green...you remember). But now the graphics are a little better and the other cool new feature is...you can have more than one person playing at a time! So instead of taking turns when one guy dies, we all play on the screen at once. You can have up to four characters but we usually just have us two.

Brad always plays Mario and I'm always yellow Toad (you know - the guy with the mushroom head, but instead of red, yellow). The other really neat thing is that if we're playing a really hard world and one player is more advanced, the other can go in a "bubble" and just float along instead of playing. Then when you're ready to play again the other guy just has to pop you out of your bubble. Well, I'm sure you can see where one conflict would arise - what if that person is so busy playing they don't stop to pop you out of the bubble? That can be really frustrating! Or what if they accidentally pop you out of the bubble when you don't want them to, like when you're floating over a hole in the ground? Or over an enemy fire-shooting flower??? Or worse, what if it's a hard level and you BOTH accidentally go into a bubble at the same time?!?! Then you have to restart the level...

Oh and as you're running through the level, watch out! If one player goes too fast and the other can't keep up, it can cause real problems. If the faster player keeps running forward, the other guy dies if he gets too far behind (off the screen). That might have happened once or twice to Brad because of me. But I just find in some levels it's better to go faster and get it over with! He always likes to go slow and get every possible box and item...

This game, like the classic, has question mark boxes all around that you can hit. They usually have coins but sometimes they'll have a special item (like a mushroom which makes you "big" or fire shooting power). Conveniently, usually TWO mushrooms or fire shooting powers come out of the boxes, but what if one person in their eagerness to get the item accidentally runs into them both, leaving none for the other player??? Or what if one mushroom comes out, but one fire power, how do you choose who gets which one? And in every level there's a halfway save point, and when you run past the halfway flag, whoever runs through first automatically becomes "big" - and suddenly the teamwork ends there. All sources of conflict...

Another thing you can do in the game (this wasn't in the classic), is that you can jump on each other's heads to get an extra boost and reach high items. But it can get really annoying if the other person won't STOP jumping on your head. Or if you're jumping over a hole in the ground and they jump on your head and push you down into the hole.

When Brad and I play, we (usually) don't do these things on purpose. It's just really hard to jump up for something when the other person might be jumping up for that same thing at the same time! We're constantly saying "Why did you go in a bubble? I was going to go in the bubble!" Or "Why would you get BOTH mushrooms?" Or "Stop jumping on my head!!!" We always start laughing when we realize we're getting upset over a video game. And we always say "we just have to communicate. Just TELL me if you're going to go into a bubble." Or "Just say something if you need me to slow down and wait for you." And when it comes to the mushroom at the halfway point or better item from a question box, Brad usually lets me have it. It's probably because I'm not as good as he is, so my guy needs to be "big" to last longer in the game. But I like to think it's just because he loves me that much. (I let him get the good items too sometimes).

So there you have it. You want to see how good your marriage or relationship is? Buy Mario for Wii. Good luck!