News: What if Super Mario Was a First Person Shooter?

The classic Super Mario Bros is perhaps the most beloved video game on Earth. Almost daily, homages to Mario pop up on the web over and over and over again. Everybody loves the charming 2D world of Mario. But what would Mario look like in 3D… and moreover, what would Super Mario feel like as a First Person Shooter game?

We're all anxiously awaiting the debut of Nintendo 3DS in full 3D—yep, Nintendo announced in early March that a new game release will allow users to view 3D content without the need of special glasses: "3D Super Mario will feature traditional Mario game play and will fulfill the dream of Nintendo video game designer (and Mario creator) Shigeru Miyamoto to bring true depth and distance into the game's mechanics."

Check out this analysis by IGN:

But as we wait for more news on the mysterious Super Mario 3DS, check out this glimpse of what Mario would look like in the third dimension, re-imagined as a "sweet next-gen first person shooter". Posted by our favorite SFX master Freddie Wong of Facerocker, the piece was created by Brandon Laatsch. It took over 60 hours(!) to render in 3dsMax, FumeFX, and After Effects.

Oh! P.S. According to site gamrFeed, there's a secret cheat code: "Hit the '1' key on your keyboard when the video is paused (or hold it down while it's playing) and you'll see a secret Princess Peach! That code *might* only work when you view it on YouTube."

Didn't work for me, but maybe you'll be lucky...

More by Wong and crew:

• HowTo: Annihilate Your Enemies With Light Warfare.