And it was here that they had a Super Mario Sunshine speedrun. This was before Youtube, so these were downloadable video files, usually in AVI or MPG format.

The site was small, updated manually, and featured a list of roughly 100 games – maybe less. Earlier that same year, somebody had linked me to something called “Quake Done Quick.” It was attached to a relatively new site, called the “ Speed Demos Archive”, a hub for videos of people finishing games as fast as possible. I was desperate to play the game that was being sold as the sequel to Super Mario 64, but I could not envision a future where that would ever be possible.Įventually, I reached my breaking point. I was 23 years old, with no job, no money, and no prospects. It was also a strange case where I became convinced it was a game I’d never play, originally. I was proud enough of that review that when it came time to relaunch TSSZ News in 2008, it was one of five archived reviews I transplanted on to the site. It was among some of the first game reviews I ever wrote for the internet, for one, all the way back in 2005.

Super Mario Sunshine is a weird game for a lot of different reasons.

Super mario sunshine hub island