Danny ChaiIt’s sad but true: Dave is legitimately a better Dr. Mario player than me. At first, I was losing because I wasn’t used to the timing (we played the SNES version – I typically play the N64 version). After I got used to that, I was still losing because I wasn’t used to the controller. At level 20, you have to be able to confidently rotate in both directions, and I could not win without that.
But after a while, I was in sync with both the game timing and the controls, and Dave still consistently beat me. It wasn’t a matter of speed or strategy – on both counts, he was performing better than me. Pretty frustrating. I did beat him 4 matches in a row, but this was after we’d been playing for a while, when my superior video game physical conditioning came into play. We were playing on his laptop, so we kind of had to hunch over, and at least on my part, my knees, lower back, and neck were burning, and my eyes stung from not having blinked in hours. However, I have a gift of being able to play through video game pain. I can play Minesweeper for hours, overcoming hunger, a bladder on the verge of explosion, and extreme pain from my wrist to my shoulder. It’s a combination of strong will, sheer determination, and being a complete loser.
But yeah, thanks to my superior conditioning, I was beating him frequently at the end. At mile 20 of a Dr. Mario marathon, I’m better. But at the starting line, he’s a better straight up player. And I’m really sad about that.
I was the best Dr. Mario player I knew from 1994 – 2007. It was nice while it lasted. R.I.P.