68. Super Bernie World (Eniko, PC, 2020)

Super Bernie World is a free 8-bit style platformer released to build support for democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. The game is basically a copy of the original Super Mario Bros. but with topical political iconography replacing Mario's classic pop art characters & environments. Goombas are now wearing red baseball caps, koopa troopas sport a Mitch McConnell visage, etc. This isn't a blog where I plan on getting very political, so let's talk gameplay.

Much like many people in this election, the first hurdle I had to overcome was dealing with my past biases. I've been playing various Mario games for over 25 years, and I've played all of them with a controller, but this game being controlled via a keyboard, I had to make some adjustments. I tried playing as you would probably imagine: my left hand index and middle fingers on the Z and X key for run and jump, and my right hand on the arrow keys for movement. But it just wasn't working; I've been moving Mario with my left hand and controlling his running an jumping with my right hand all this time, and I'm just not ambidextrous enough to switch on a whim. I also had this issue with the Shadow of the Colossus remake, which updated the controls to a more modern style, but the old controls were so ingrained in my brain that I had to continue using those for the game to feel correct.

So my combo stupid/smart solution was to simply cross my arms when playing, positioning my left hand to control directional movement and my right hand to control running & jumping. And after about a level of playing this way, I got my groove back, and was able to sail through the game's relatively brief 12 levels. The levels themselves are very similar to Super Mario Bros levels since the game uses the same enemy types and platforms, so even if level designs are not straight up plagiarized, they certainly feel familiar, as there is only so much variety to the Super Mario Bros. formula. The difficulty ramps up nicely, with the platforming challenges and enemy placement growing steadily, though it was never quite as challenging as some of the more difficult Mario levels. I chose to stay as small Bernie for basically the whole game, and basically speed ran each level to the best of my ability. Thankfully there is no life system; you just start back at the beginning of a level upon failure.

I will say that the running and jumping is not quite Mario-perfect, though it comes admirably close for a free short political game, and the level design is similarly well crafted. The novelty of facing bosses like Ted Cruz definitely gave me some nostalgia for the days of politician-featuring video games like Bad Dudes or the unreleased platformer starring Bill Clinton's cat, Socks the Cat Rocks the Hill.

4/5, I just hope Bernie can campaign as well as he runs and jumps.