Super Mario Bros 3: Mario Forever Flash

Super Mario Bros 3 Mario Forever Flash gives you the chance to play this classic Nintendo game right on your desktop. You can control Mario with either your keyboard or a joypad, and even if you never played this game in its original form, you'll quickly get hooked on the fun and adventure.

Pros

Intuitive controls: The game comes with preset controls for the keyboard that are just what you'd expect. You can use the arrow keys to move left, right, up, or down, and the space bar makes your character jump. You can view a list of the controls with their respective keys in the Settings menu.

In-game hints: When you begin to play, the game offers some useful onscreen tips to help you find all of the hidden features and get the most out of the game. While these are likely unnecessary for people who've played any Mario game before, in any form, they're a great tool to help players new to the game catch on quickly.

Cons

Some bugs: At one point during testing, the keyboard controls stopped working properly, and it was impossible to make Mario run. It also appears that you should be able to customize the keyboard controls by specifying your own keys, but that feature did not work either.

Bottom Line

This game provides a fun diversion for long-time aficionados of the Mario games and newcomers, alike. Because of the way it's set up, you can play for a few minutes or a few hours; and since it's free, there's really no reason not to check it out, even with the in-game glitches.