The year was 1999. We were all partying as Prince had suggested back in 1982, and Nintendo was about to show us a different kind of party - a Mario kind of party - aptly named Mario Party. The game was revolutionary not only for it's perfection of the party game formula, but because it proved to the world that we gamers would endure just about anything for our beloved past time. This is because Mario Party proved that we gamers would continue to play, even if injured... even if injured by the very game we were playing.



Mario Party gave us 6 of our favorite Mario franchise characters and got them to play a giant board game. After each round of turns, the players would all partake in a mini game. This is when most of the game's fun happened; it's also when most of the game's pain happened.



Behold, the N64 controller. It was the first console controller to truly bring the analog stick into our homes. In some of Mario Party's mini games, players were required to rotate the analog stick very quickly. In order to obtain the quickest rotations, gamers would rotate the stick not with their thumbs, but with the palm of their hands. This rotation caused a lot of friction between palms and analog sticks, and created... BLISTERS! Note: If you have never experienced one of the blisters caused by Mario Party, GTFO my interwebs as soon as possible. These painful blisters were the first time I can remember ever taking pain from my favorite pleasure, yet they didn't stop me from playing. They didn't stop anybody from playing. The blisters weren't wounds, they were battle scars suffered in wars against our friends to obtain coins to buy stars and win the party.

Nintendo tried to remedy the situation by administering gloves to players. The gloves, however, did not contain any Nintendo or Mario Party logos, and weren't even administered until after Mario Party 2 came out. Some parents might have cried "too little too late," but we gamers could only say "Gloves? We ain't got no gloves! We don't need no gloves. I don't have to show you any stinkin' gloves!"

Since Mario Party, I have taken numerous injuries from gaming. I've suffered sore arms from Wii Sports, sprained ankles from NES Soccer (don't ask), and highly sensitive spots on my thumb from playing with the very N64 analog stick that gave me blisters back in 1999. Many gamers have suffered injuries from flying Wiimotes, and I'm sure there are countless other video game related injuries gamers have suffered. But we don't care, because Mario Party injured us all, and then told us to just suck it up and keep playing. Thank you, Mario Party, for showing us all how to play through the pain.