Browser Mario

Nintendo is known for cracking down on downloads, torrents, and ports of their games, but they have to take breaks some time, right? Just last week, the developers of the "Super Mario 64 Plus" PC port of the game stated that they weren't too worried about DMCAs, since they weren't actually a threat to the sales of the game.

So, hopefully, this version of Super Mario 64 that you can play entirely in a browser window (with a keyboard and mouse, or an Xbox / PlayStation controller, even!) will go unthreatened by Nintendo's legal department.

But now we've got all the "Nintendo ban incoming" chat out of the way, let's talk about how incredible this story is. A game that used to need an entire cartridge to run on a purpose-built console can now be played in a tab while we type this article. Seriously, it's sitting to the left of this right now. The future is incredible.

Web-based Mario times
See, look! We weren't lying!

Super Mario 64: Browser Edition is remarkably responsive, with no lag, no graphical issues, and all the sounds and music that we love from the original. You can even resize the window and it'll adjust the aspect ratio, turning Mario into a big ol' beanpole just like his brother. Or you can make it tiny, so your boss won't even notice that you're playing video games at work!

Of course, the original Super Mario 64 is somewhere around 8ish megabytes in size, so you would probably have more trouble sending a gif on Discord or watching a short video on YouTube than you would running this game.

Bob-Omb's Browserfield
We had to close a lot of tabs to make our browser look this tidy

Apparently, though, this is a port from the Super Mario 64 decomp project, which is all available on github. If you're tired of Mario getting all the attention, then keep an eye out for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the decomp of which is apparently close to completion, and will probably spawn similar browser-based ports.

So, go! Play Super Mario 64 in a browser window, while you still can!

[source froggi.es]