There are many reasons to grow a moustache, but not many people have one for the same reason as Nintendo legend Mario: to get around the visual limitations of early video game tech.
It was a long, slow road to the photorealistic textures and lifelike characters we enjoy now, and comparing the pinnacle of design then to what we take for granted now can make retro games feel a million years old.
Nowadays, in the UK 13.6m gamers play online and the internet has transformed the industry. Where consoles were once king, now they are only part of a gaming universe that also includes everything from mobile games and Facebook apps to online live bingo. Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG), such as World of Warcraft, offer an even deeper experience with their 360-degree open world environments and hyper-realistic graphics. With these games, a stable wifi connection can make all the difference between virtual life and death.
Yet when Mario was just starting out as Jumpman, a secondary character in Donkey Kong back in the 1980s, restricted colour palettes and small screens forced artists to be creative – you couldn’t just draw something the way it would look in real life. It had to be clear what the image represented even at the low resolutions of early games, which presented a real challenge for the people creating some of the characters that have since become iconic.
For instance, we all know Mario’s trademark moustache and hat – but not many gamers know he only has those because it was hard to draw clearly in 8-bit. Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto says: “Back then, everything was monochrome and we were using 8- or 10-bit images. I was always drawing pictures, trying to see how I could convey the image to [the] screen.
“I wanted to create an image that looked like a moving person. Drawing a face was complicated, so I started with a nose. In order to distinguish his nose, I added a moustache. Drawing hair was also complicated, so I made him wear a cap.”
When Mario made the move to full-colour 3D, his moustache and cap came, too – and he just wouldn’t be the same without them. But that doesn’t mean his tech troubles were over.
The 1996 Nintendo 64 console was a revolution at the time, bringing polygon-based 3D worlds to our chunky living room TVs. But as the name suggests, the 64’s game cartridges only had 64MB of memory, meaning games sometimes had to significantly cut back on music.
The 64 also didn’t have a separate sound chip, meaning music had to compete for resources alongside the gorgeous new graphics. That was all well and good until processor-intensive games came along, at which point the tunes went out the window. Have you ever noticed how your four-player race on Mario Kart 64 lacked the jazzy music of races with fewer player-controlled characters? Now you know why.
From the early 2000s, consoles with internet capabilities began to appear on the market and, over the next 10 years, live player-to-player gaming took off with opponents often in different continents. Such developments placed a stable wifi connection at the top of every gamer’s wishlist.
Whether you’re downloading the latest platformer or engaged in an intense battle with your MMORPG buddies, a stable, superfast connection is an essential tool in your satchel. Every gamer knows the sting of loading up a new title only to have to wait hours for updates and patches to download or, worse, losing a crucial match to lag.
Virgin Media’s new Intelligent WiFi system takes gaming to the next level. It’s a self-scanning, self-improving network that constantly looks for problems and fixes them before they impact your performance. It also optimises the wifi signal on each device in the home.
If you still need a little extra performance in a particular place, you can order an Intelligent WiFi booster directly from the app, which plugs into any socket and uses the existing electrical wiring in your home to improve signal.
Intelligent WiFi also takes care of the more technical aspects of improving your connection, so you can focus on gaming. Say you’re using your PS4, for instance. Intelligent WiFi’s artificial intelligence (AI) automatically chooses the best available connection, and makes sure data is shared out fairly between the other devices on your network – so someone streaming a movie in another room doesn’t mess up your speed.
Using the Connect app, you can set up a separate wifi network for friends and visitors, so you don’t have to give out your password to anyone. You can also use the app to see what devices are slurping up the wifi – so say someone’s downloading huge files while you’re trying to win a match, you can just hit pause on that device until you’re done. It’s probably best to ask them first, mind you.
Intelligent WiFi regularly checks for congestion on the network and switches you to the quietest channel for better speed. It’s all automatic and instant, so you won’t notice any interruptions – it’d be a bit of a problem if you did, since the system makes about 300,000 little adjustments across the network each day.
The Connect app is useful when you’re out of the house, too – it connects you to half of all wifi hotspots in the UK. Perfect for gaming on the move.
If you’ve already got Virgin Fibre, you get Intelligent WiFi free. You don’t have to be a new customer or spend a fortune. And if you’re not with the smart gamers’ network yet, well, don’t you feel like Mario without his cap?
Looking for faster connectivity? Or just fed up of losing connection halfway through your favourite TV series? Virgin Media’s Intelligent WiFi has you covered.
