''The first three Mario games were so central to my childhood, I suspect I still could play them by memory now if I picked up a controller. When Super Mario Bros. 3 first came out, I even tried to befriend the local jerky kid down the street because he was the first on the block to have it. His other jerky friend ended up calling my bluff — ''You're only here because he has Mario 3, huh?'' — but, man, that hour playing the game was still bliss. My father ended up buying me the game as a surprise one day, causing me more joy than I knew my skinny frame could muster — and my mother much more consternation, as I completely blew off a book report to play it non-stop for a week. She took away the game for two weeks, if I recall correctly, but I ended up getting paid to write about videogames for my job, so things didn't turn out too terribly.''—Adam B. Vary