Happy New Year! I hope you had a great holiday season and the 'January Blues' aren't hitting you too hard. If they are, I'm positive a new podcast will help snap you out of it!

We're going with a bit of a black sheep this week (there are only so many Chrono Triggers and Tony Hawks out there). My buddy and fellow comedian David Rae returns to the show, and we decided to have a chat about the 'Cousin Oliver' of the NES Mario family; the REAL Super Mario Bros 2. You may know it as Super Mario Bros - The Lost Levels.

After being released in Japan as the original Super Mario Bros 2, it was deemed too difficult by Nintendo of America. It was never made available for the NES, and we ended up getting a different Super Mario Bros 2 altogether. Years later, the game was finally smuggled into North America in the (superb) Super Mario Bros All-Stars compilation on the SNES. The original 8-bit version of the game eventually found it's way onto the Wii, 3DS, and Wii U virtual consoles, as well.

This game is unquestionably the most difficult game of the NES Mario Bros series, and it stands up against any game in the Mario Bros library as far as challenge goes. I love it. If you've played it, you know how brutal and unforgiving it is. If you haven't played it, we probably won't sell you on it in this podcast, but you should give it a shot. It's still a Mario game!