Discover Secret Invasion, the next Disney Plus series that will star Samuel L. Jackson and decide the future of Marvel.
Marvel Studios is not at its peak. After a somewhat average phase 4 -which has suffered the hangover of Thanos-, the studio has launched dozens of films and series that have suffered the wear and tear of oversaturation, reaching several ups and downs along the way.
However, there is one series that may buck this trend: Secret Invasion. Starring Samuel L. Jackson, it will arrive next June 21 exclusively on Disney Plus. Its trailer has just been released and it reminds us so much of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Civil War that we couldn’t be more effusive.
What is Secret Invasion about?
With Samuel L. Jackson as the main protagonist -turned into the action hero he hasn’t had much time to be in the movies-, the series promises to be an unbridled thriller, full of action and dramatic plot twists. The synopsis drinks from what we already got to see in Captain Marvel:
Nick Fury uncovers a conspiracy to install double agents in positions of power around the world: shape-shifting green-skinned aliens known as Skrulls, who can perfectly simulate any human being at will.
Joining Jackson in the cast are the following big-name actors who are sure to have a big future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe:
Ben Mendelsohn is Talos, the leader of a Skrull organization who starts out as an ally of Nick Fury… although everything may change over the course of the series.
Emilia Clarke is G’iah, Talos’ daughter who has a lot of resentment towards Fury for not keeping the promises he made to find a new home for the Skrulls.
Cobie Smulders is Maria Hill, a former SHIELD agent who worked hand-in-hand with Fury and remains his right-hand woman.
Kingsley Ben-Adir is Gravik, the leader of a group of rebel Skrulls who broke away from the Talos faction and believes the best way for their species to prosper is to infiltrate Earth.
Beyond these four stars, the cast is rounded out by Oliva Colman (Sonya Falsworth), Don Cheadle (War Machine) and Martin Freeman (Everett K. Ross). Undoubtedly, the most exciting cast that a Marvel Studio series has ever had. We won’t be able to see it on Disney Plus until June 21, but it promises to change everything and lay the groundwork for the next Secret Wars.
Discover the location where the second season of The Last of Us will be filmed, in which Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey will return to their roles.
The first season of The Last of Us came to an end a few weeks ago and fans couldn’t be happier with the conclusion of this first batch of episodes. The HBO Max series has come to be considered the best video game adaptation ever made, and the performances of Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey couldn’t have been more on point.
But after the end of the first season, many have wondered what will happen with the sequel, which will adapt the second video game. The showrunners have clarified that there is so much to tell that it will be divided into several more seasons, and they have already set to work to shoot as soon as possible.
Season 2 filming location revealed
Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann are finalizing the details of filming season 2 of The Last of Us, and have already chosen the location where they will shoot much of the next episodes. As Deadline reveals, the crew has moved to Vancouver, Canada, a city located on the northwest coast of the Pacific Ocean that plays a major role in the second video game.
While the first season was largely shot in Calgary (Alberta, Canada), a well-located location that allowed them to move to other shooting locations such as Wyoming, Texas or Missouri, this time they have chosen to go further south.
It’s unclear when filming will begin, but the actress who plays Ellie has given some hint: “I think we’ll probably shoot between the end of this year and early next year. So the premiere will probably be late 2024 or early 2025″.
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Step-by-step tutorial to solve the error code “ssl_error_rx_record_too_long” in Mozilla Firefox and thus be able to navigate normally again.
The error code “ssl_error_rx_record_too_long” is very common among browsers, especially Mozilla Firefox. It is accompanied by the message “Secure Connection Failed” and responds to a discrepancy between the security of the data sent by a web server and the data expected by the browser. The result prevents the normal display of the web page, which is very annoying if, for example, we need to use the Internet constantly for work.
What causes the error code “SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG”?
As we have already told you, the main cause of the ssl_error_rx_record_too_long error in Firefox is due to the inability to verify the data received. This can be due to a number of factors, including a misconfigured SSL certificate or some other type of security flaw on the part of the website. As a result, Firefox is unable to complete the connection to the server port, blocking access to the website.
Solution 1: Access the URL with the HTTP protocol
This is perhaps the easiest way to resolve this error. As we have already told you, the error “ssl_error_rx_record_too_long” is due to the fact that Firefox is unable to verify the secure data (SSL) of a page and therefore blocks it. One way around this is to access that same URL by replacing “https://” with “http://”. To do this simply open a new tab in the browser, copy and paste the address and change the beginning of the address to “http://”. If this does not work, try one of the other methods we offer.
Solution 2: Use a connection without Proxy
Another simple and usually effective way to solve this annoying error message is to change the settings with which Firefox connects to the Internet. To do this first of all click on “Open menu” (it is the icon of the three horizontal lines in the upper right corner of the screen) and then click on “Options”.
Once in the Firefox options, scroll down to the “Network Settings” section (it is the last one in the list) and then click on “Settings”. Within this menu check the “No Proxy” option under “Configure proxy access to the Internet” and click OK. Restart the browser and try to access the page that gave you the error. If the problem persists try one of the other methods mentioned above.
Solution 3: Use Firefox in Safe Mode
Although many users do not know it, Firefox has a Safe Mode that is able to solve most of the errors that the browser suffers from. This will deactivate all the extensions that you have installed and also all the hardware acceleration options that you have active. In this way, the browser will work only with its minimum options, being able to easily detect what generates the error “ssl_error_rx_record_too_long error”.
To activate Safe Mode simply click on “Open menu” (it is the icon with the three horizontal lines in the upper right corner of the screen) followed by the “Help” option. You will see this will open a new drop-down menu.
To continue with the process, click on the “Restart with add-ons disabled” option. This will open a new window in which Firefox will ask you to confirm that you want to restart the browser. Click on the “Restart” button.
Finally Firefox will ask if you want to access the browser in Safe Mode. Click the option to restart the tool in safe mode and try to access the page that gave you the error. If it persists try one of the other methods.
Solution 4: Disable Firefox Extensions
If you prefer to disable extensions directly without reverting your browser to Safe Mode, you can also do so. To do this just click on “Open menu” (it is the icon with the three horizontal lines) and then click on “Add-ons”.
Click on “Extensions” in the left side menu of the screen and deactivate all the extensions that you see fit in the right side menu. Once you have done this, restart your browser and try to access the page that gave you errors. If it persists, try one of the other methods.
Solution 5: Reset Firefox to its original settings
It may be a change you have made to your browser that is causing it to not work as it should. To return Firefox to factory default simply type “about:support” in the navigation bar and press Enter.
In the new window you will see all the technical information about your browser. Click on the “Reset Firefox” option on the right side menu of the screen. After that try again to access the website that gave you errors and if the problem persists, try another of the methods we offer.
Solution 6: Change your TLS preferences
The error code “ssl_error_rx_record_too_long” may appear as a result of a transport layer security (TLS) misconfiguration. This type of encryption, very similar to SSL, protects the transparency of data and information over the Internet. That is why altering your preferences can solve this annoying problem.
To do so, open Firefox, type “about:config” in the navigation bar and click on the blue “Accept risk and continue” button.
Once this is done, type “TLS” in the search bar and press Enter. Now with the list of addresses displayed, search for “security.tls.version.max”. Double-click on it and change the value from 4 to 3. Now simply restart the browser and try to visit the web page. If it does not work, it is recommended that you leave the TLS value as it was before.
Solution 7. Add the URL to your trusted pages
Another effective solution to resolve the “ssl_error_rx_record_too_long” error message is to add the URL that is giving you problems to the Windows trusted pages. For it you will have to accede to the Internet Options inside the Control Panel of your operating system. Once there, click on the “Security” tab and select the “Trusted Sites” option.
Now simply click on the “Sites” button and, in the new window, type the name of the URL that is giving you problems and select “Add”. Once done, apply the changes and open Firefox to see if it works.
Solution 8: Disable your antivirus
Sometimes this error is due to the fact that our antivirus is blocking secure pages by mistake. One way to detect if this is the case is to deactivate our antivirus software for a few seconds and try to access the web during that period of time. If this works, the problem lies in your antivirus and not your browser, so you may want to consider changing it.
It is very important to emphasize that this step is only recommended if you know that the website you want to access and appears blocked is trustworthy. Otherwise, never disable your antivirus software.
Solution 9: Update Firefox
An outdated version of your browser may be the culprit for not being able to access certain web pages. Updating Firefox is very simple, just click on “Open menu”, “Help” and finally “About Firefox”. A new window will open informing you if you have the latest version of the browser or if you need to update it.
Solution 10: Reinstall Firefox
If the problems persist after trying all the above methods, you may want to reinstall your browser. To do this, first of all uninstall Firefox from your computer and then download the latest version below.
Double-click on the installer and follow the on-screen instructions. After finishing the process, try again to access the pages that gave you an error.
Solution 11: Change your browser
If after performing all the methods we have suggested you are still unable to access most of the web pages, try installing another browser. There are some really good alternatives that will make you not miss Mozilla’s browser at all. These are the ones we like the most:
After installing your new browser, try to access the pages that were giving you errors.
Get rid of the annoying message “SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG”
We hope that our selection of tricks has helped you to solve the code “ssl_error_rx_record_too_long” in Firefox. As you have seen, despite being a rather annoying error, it is easy to solve once you know the steps to follow. Did you like what you have read? We encourage you to share this article with your friends through social networks.
For us, April Fools’ Day is December 28. For the US it is April 1st and they call it April Fools. We compile the best of 2023.
Yesterday was April Fool’s Day for those who speak Shakespeare’s language, for that reason you did not stop reading very crazy news on TikTok, Twitter and Instagram. All of them were lies. Well, not all of them, if you read any of Elon Musk’s tweets you can believe it: he is like that.
Today we do you the favor of compiling the best pranks of the technological world that were published in networks, at least those that had more impact, otherwise this article would be infinite.
A 2023 with an April Fools’ Day of the highest standard
Let’s start with Tinder. In the United States it seems that half of the male profiles boast of being fishermen. It must be some issue over there related to masculinity. For that reason they announced that they would delete all photos in which a man was dressed as a fisherman. It’s time to get off Tinder.
We continue with Nothing. Carl Pei’s tech brand is managing to carve a niche for itself thanks to its minimalist designs and quality products. That’s why when they announced a beer yesterday we were a bit… how?
Introducing Beer (5.1%).
Crisp, unfiltered rice lager. Carefully crafted for a distinct and drier taste. Independently brewed in Wales, UK. Nothing engineer approved.
We continue with Razer. The American brand of peripherals and computers is one of the ones that most care about April Fool’s Day and this 2023 they have made another genius, with video included. The razor mouse. Worthy of a prize.
The guest artist is Duolingo. The world’s most used tool for learning languages surprised us with a trailer of a reality show of pretty boys and girls who have to fall in love… but where no one speaks the same language. More applause, please.
We close with Elon Musk and Tesla. They could not miss the date of the innocents and they used Cybertruck for it. They released a video where they were supposed to show a crash test… and the funny thing is that it never crashes at any time. It’s like the Cybertruck itself, which never makes it to market.
Guest artist… Overwatch. We could not miss the opportunity to highlight that Blizzard decided to release a patch with additional voice lines to the heroes of the game where everything is jokes and memes. It is very funny and we must recognize the merit. If you found it funny you have to download the game.
As you can see, this year they have been very good on the other side of the pond with good jokes and well worked videos. For us it is complicated to work on April 1st (everything can be a lie), but for you it is a lot of fun and for that alone it is worth it.
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Musicians are nobody without their representatives in the music industry. That happened to Madonna and the Ramones with Seymur Stein.
Seymur Stein, the legendary music executive who co-founded Sire Records, where he signed the Ramones and Madonna, died Sunday in Los Angeles after a long battle with cancer. He was 80 years old.
Stein co-founded the Sire record label in 1966, where he also signed Pretenders, Echo and the Bunnymen and Soft Cell. Artists such as Depeche Mode, Ice-T, The Cure, The Replacements, Everything But the Girl, My Bloody Valentine and Ride.
In 1983, he helped create the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, which led to the Rock Hall of Fame, where he was inducted in 2005. His greatness is beyond question.
He discovered Madonna, but his career is much more than that
In addition to supporting artists who were then in the shadows, Stein also encouraged rock stars to continue to create and innovate in their careers.
In the 1980s, he signed Brian Wilson to release his first solo album, and Lou Reed, who released the album New York in 1989.
Born on April 18, 1942, Seymour Steinbigle got his start in the music business as a teenager when he showed up at the offices of Billboard magazine and asked to hand-copy all the charts the publication had for each week since his birth.
The editors agreed and Stein completed the project. When he finished high school, he worked at Billboard.
In the early 1960s, he worked at a small record label called King and Red Bird. Stein then teamed up with producer and songwriter Richard Gottehrer and they formed Sire, an amalgamation of their first names.
Sire’s early years were weak, although they released Fleetwood Mac’s first blues albums in the United States. The label’s first hit came in 1973 with Hocus Pocus, by the Dutch band Focus, which reached number nine on the charts.
Gottehrer left the label two years later. That same year, Stein’s then-wife Linda had just seen a band called The Ramones at a seedy bar called CBGB’s and told Stein about them. The next day, Stein auditioned the group and, in 1976, Sire released their eponymous debut.
Linda became their manager and the Ramones released 11 albums with Sire. Talking Heads was another CBGB’s discovery, as was Richard Hell & the Voidoids.
Sire was distributed by Warner Bros. beginning in 1977 and acquired by the company in 1978. Stein continued at Warner Music, and the Sire label moved from one division to another before becoming inactive.
In 2012 he received Billboard’s Icon Award and retired in 2018. Seymour Stein was much more than Madonna.
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The Last of Us Remake for PC will go down in history as one of the worst game releases ever. Not because the title is bad, not at all, but because the porting of the game from PS5 to PC is a disaster… with an expiration date.
Naughty Dog, the team that created the game and developed both the first and the second part, has intoned today the mea culpa via Twitter. And no wonder.
The Last of Us Part I PC players: We know some of you have not experienced the Naughty Dog quality you expected. Our team is working hard to resolve issues currently preventing some of you from experiencing the game to ensure it reaches the quality level you expect and deserve.
“We know some of you haven’t experienced the Naughty Dog quality you’ve come to expect,” begins the developer’s Twitter thread directed at players of The Last of Us Part 1 on PC.
“Our team is working hard to resolve the issues that are currently preventing some of you from enjoying the game to ensure it reaches the level of quality you expect and deserve.”
A patch is scheduled for Tuesday, April 4 that will fix camera shake when moving the camera with the mouse, random crashes and other issues plaguing the game on PC.
Frame from The Last of Us
Another major patch with additional fixes will be rolled out later in the week. Naughty Two has also asked players to update their graphics card drivers.
Iron Galaxy, the team in charge of developing the PC port, will continue to work on making the game run smoothly, as we all know that such a broken game can be fixed in a week with two minor patches.
Chronicle of bugs foretold
Initially, the PC port was scheduled for release on March 3, but was delayed until March 28, in part, due to the popularity of the HBO adaptation, where Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey made us fall in love.
They then justified the delay with a “we want to make sure that The Last of Us Remake’s debut on PC runs smoothly. The few extra weeks will allow us to make sure this version of The Last of Us is up to your, and our, standards.” They couldn’t have been more wrong.
In the week of release, many players found that things were not up to their standards. Some reported crashes and poor performance, others encountered glitches such as levitating supporting characters, hairs that didn’t fit, protagonist Joel with weird looking bushy eyebrows, and characters getting drenched out of nowhere in the middle of scenes.
PlayStation cannot afford such serious flaws if it intends to continue selling its brand as a multiplatform company that releases video games for both PS5 and PC.
As our colleague Nacho Requena said a few days ago, such a bad release is a missed golden opportunity to show Sony that they are a reliable and multiplatform company. They have time to fix it, but there are buts in between and they are serious.
This release is going to weigh on it throughout this year, since PC gamers do not forget this kind of failures. The PC Gamer is very demanding when it comes to graphic quality and it is very bad for a title that on console works like silk, on PC to go stumbling. Sony, don’t waste your bullets.
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For many he is The Voice, for others a successful artist in Hollywood. Frank Sinatra was the most global man of the 20th century and he left us 30 years ago.
He is one of the most influential and important people of the 20th century. He was the voice of unforgettable songs, the face of hit movies… few people encompass the word entertainer more than Frank Sinatra. Only Elvis Presley can look him in the eye.
Today we want to imagine what Frank Sinatra would look like in 2023. With more than 100 years behind him. He’s probably better off resting after a life full of successes, but we’ve asked artificial intelligence and the result is worth it.
New Jersey boy who touched the stars
Frank Sinatra was a famous American singer and actor, born in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1915 and died in Los Angeles in 1998. Like all great artists, his adult life was spent in sunny California.
Sinatra is considered one of the most important and popular singers of the 20th century, known for his smooth and melodious voice, his unique style and his ability to convey all kinds of emotion through his interpretations.
Throughout his career, Sinatra recorded more than 1,400 songs, performed in dozens of films and television shows, and won several awards, including 11 Grammy Awards and an Oscar.
Among his most famous songs are: My Way, New York, New York, New York, Fly Me to the Moon, Strangers in the Night and The Way You Look Tonight.
He is also known for his roles in films such as From Here to Eternity and The Man with the Golden Arm. Because Frank Sinatra was a renaissance man, he did it all and did it well.
The images you see in the text are created with artificial intelligence tools and represent how Frank Sinatra would look like in 2023. The first image was made with DALL-E and the one above with Stable Diffusion.
Frank Sinatra is one of the few greats of the 20th century who left us in due time. At 83 years old, to be exact, and with all the great challenges of life successfully overcome. But, who knows, he might still be delighting us today with his voice. The Voice.
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Little did the screenwriter imagine that at just turned forty he would create the strangest character of his entire career… or that that macarada would have a twist three decades later: this is the story of Snowflame.
The 80s were a very curious time in superhero comics. Sales were going through the roof on a continuous basis and the sagas were so powerful that the authors were stringing together successes, allowing themselves to do things that nowadays would be banned by hundreds of committees. For example, Len Wein, Gerry Conway and Steve Englehart created an unofficial crossover between Marvel and DC in the pages of ‘Strange Adventures’, ‘Justice League’ and ‘Thor’ in which they themselves (and Englehart’s wife) were talking to the superheroes.
Englehart, by then, was already a name of his own in comics: his are sagas such as The Celestial Madonna or The Serpent Crown in ‘The Avengers’, for example. But little did the scriptwriter imagine that at the age of forty he would create the strangest character of his entire career… or that this macabre story would have a twist three decades later: this is the story of Snowflame.
Some people don’t realize how much publishers copied each other in the 80s. So much so, that DC had a group called Guardians of the Universe before Marvel came up with their galactic namesakes. This team was born in 1960 and was united with the Green Lantern Corps until a crossover changed everything (or so they thought): ‘Millennium’ began in 1988 and lasted eight weeks, in each of which a comic book from the main collection was released.
Throughout this crossover, Herupa Hando Hu, a Guardian, and Nadia Safir, a Zamaron (really, we understand you don’t read comics, it doesn’t seem simple at all) chose different heroes from around the planet to form a new team: The New Guardians. An Australian woman who became a cosmic force, a Peruvian man who was one of the first gay superheroes in history, a Chinese woman, a man-plant…
The eight members of the New Guardians were DC‘s way of opening up to a more diverse world. Characters ended up as everything from cosmic entities to robots to being bitten by white supremacist vampires with AIDS. No, we’re not making this up: The Hemo-globin was the first villain ‘The New Guardians’ faced. But the one that changed everything and made the series go down in history of infamy was the one in its number 2: Snowflame.
What a delight, what a pleasure, to be on cocaine
The comic began directly in the jungle with the group facing an enemy dressed in red with a white aura around him, who claimed “Cocaine is my god, and I am the human instrument of his will”. Subtlety flew out the window and the comic was just getting started: Snowflame was getting stronger and stronger as he snorted the power of the cocaine plant he was fighting over.
The villain’s mansion, in the middle of the jungle, had a swimming pool, girls dancing in their underwear and the character himself saying phrases like “Do you know how many bags we have to sell to the dealers to buy a Rolls-Royce? Ten, Manuel!”. In the background, characters appeared snorting straight away – in a DC comic! Think of the sheer lunacy of it all! What’s more, Snowflame himself was doing it to confront our heroes, no plants involved, claiming that he was in for “The ultimate exhilaration, the divine ecstasy, the euphoria of electricity now surging from every molecule in my body.” My goodness, ‘Vicious Bear‘ in muscle version.
Finally, the fire that enveloped Snowflame made him explode… And that was the end of his story. Well, a priori, or don’t you know that in superhero comics nobody lives or dies? They just transform. Let’s move 32 years into the future: September 2020. Society was secluded in their homes, afraid of the Covid. It was the perfect time for Blake Northcott and Sean Murphy to bring back the kids’ favorite supervillain.
He wasn’t dead, he was on a spree
Issue 23 of ‘Catwoman’ volume 5. Selina travels to Nevada Island (subtle she certainly isn’t) to attend an auction hosted by – exactly – Snowflame, who explains how she got off years ago: “The key to faking your own death: explosions. If you blow enough people away, no one’s going to look through the mess to identify body parts.”
Mind you, he was far from reformed: he was still taking drugs (which he even offers to Catwoman), acknowledging that he’s “never quit long enough” to know whether the self-confidence is natural or cocaine-induced. Of course, Catwoman has to take down the entire drug cartel by confronting her old flame, Snowflame (because yes, they do let it slip that they were involved for a small period of time).
And indeed, power still comes from sniffing uncontrollably. Some things never change. The last we see of him is how a giant panther appears from the shadows to eat him, with his superpowers eliminated thanks to an antidote from the people of Isla Nevada. Since then, we haven’t heard from him again, but it’s possible that, seeing as he’s not even a worthy rival for Batman‘s girlfriend, he won’t be back in the pages of DC other than to be comic relief from time to time. Honestly? He won’t be missed much.
We have decided to make the definitive list of the games in the main Super Mario saga to decide, once and for all, which is the true king of the console.
We can play hundreds, thousands of video games. Live stellar adventures, walk Silent Hill, fight Nemesis or shoot in the Vietnam War. But absolutely no game can compare to the purity of the first time we ran through the Mushroom Kingdom, jumped on top of a goomba and discovered that inside the boxes there were coins and secrets. Super Mario Bros’ is the video game with a capital ‘B’.
But not all Mario games are the same… Or equally good: some are able to summarize all the good things about a video game screen after screen while others find the name a little too big. That’s why we’ve decided, on the eve of Illumination’s movie, to make the definitive list of the games in the main Super Mario saga (leaving aside karts, sports, RPGs and spin-offs) to decide, once and for all, which is the true king of the console. Let’s-a-go!
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic’ was not a great game, and its conversion outside Japan to ‘Super Mario Bros 2’ is unfair to the series. Yes, it had a huge influence on the rest of the games (Luigi jumps higher, Peach can float), but neither Bowser is present, nor the gameplay system matches the rest of the series. It has its fans, especially since it was discovered in ‘Super Mario All-Stars’, but the truth is that playing it now is only slightly more fun than doing homework. Next.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
18) Super Mario Land (Game Boy)
It was absolutely awesome that the Game Boy could have Mario on its launch, and ‘Super Mario Land’ is a technical prodigy for the time. Plus, the soundtrack is an absolute hilarious rave. The problem is that the gameplay isn’t up to par and Sarasaland isn’t as fun a place as the Mushroom Kingdom. In this version, Mario saved Daisy instead of Peach and it’s a good summary of what the game is: not bad, but not what we came looking for.
17) New Super Mario Bros 2 (Nintendo 3DS)
The ‘New Super Mario Bros’ saga revived the interest in 2D in a franchise that seemed doomed to the great adventures that had forced to leave aside the more classic screens. But in this case everything felt too derivative: neither the new powers (Gold Mario, the golden block, the white raccoon) were sufficiently novel, nor the new screens were little more than mimics of the previous ones. Entertaining, yes, but without surprises and smelling of DLC.
16) Super Mario Sunshine (GameCube)
It’s about time to admit that ‘Super Mario Sunshine’ wanted to innovate, and that’s commendable, but… it wasn’t a great game. It had some ideas and some amazing screens, but after ‘Super Mario 64’ we expected more than spending half of the game cleaning up tar with a portable hose. Mind you, Delfino Island is a new place full of possibilities and, after a few hours, once you get past the constant cleaning, it becomes even lighter.
15) Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels (NES)
The lost levels’ has, more or less, the same problem as ‘New Super Mario Bros 2’: it’s more of the same in a series that stands out for never settling for that. But the Japanese ‘Super Mario Bros 2’ has something that makes it unique: it is, by far, the most difficult game of the whole series. While the rest of this list can always be played with a smile, this is Mario’s ‘Dark Souls’, which also rewarded with an unpublished world to all those who passed it without taking shortcuts. If you manage to finish it, you may love ‘Doki Doki Panic’ a lot more (and a little less to life).
14) New Super Mario Bros Wii (Wii)
Being a game of the ‘New Super Mario Bros’ saga you know what’s what, but in the case of Wii there was a surprising novelty: the possibility of playing cooperatively and competitively with up to four people. Playing alone made it just another game on this list, but the madness of getting four friends together and trying to pass the screens without killing each other is an experience only comparable in fun to a good ‘Mario Kart’. And that’s not saying little.
13) Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (Game Boy)
Letting Nintendo developers let their hair down gives rise to one of the most imaginative (and unfairly underrated) Game Boy games: in ‘Super Mario Land 2’ Mario fought for the first time against Wario, his evil counterpart, and to do so he went through all sorts of wacky worlds, from the one that reflected his miniature body to the moon itself. A real classic to carry around in your pocket. Easy? Yes. Fun and full of secrets? Absolutely.
12) New Super Mario Bros U (Wii U)
Maybe only a few of us remember the Wii U fondly, but the truth is that, although it is now gathering dust in a closet, Nintendo went all out with the few games it released. Proof of this is this ‘New Super Mario Bros U’ that, without changing the rules of the game franchise, managed to give a new tone to the ‘Super Mario World’ in which, in addition, could play up to 5 people at once. Just to have the opportunity to fight against all the koopalings and to be able to become a flying squirrel was worth discovering.
11) Super Mario 3D Land (Nintendo 3DS)
Maybe not everyone liked it, but the use of 3D in the game gave it an atmosphere that makes it impossible to play on any other system, or without taking away, at least, much of the fun. The mix between 2D and 3D, creating a hybrid game, made this, once again, the proof that the saga could always surprise. A lot of new power-ups and durability made this a favorite of the last portable (real, at least) of the house.
10) Yoshi’s Island (SNES)
Or, literally, ‘Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island’. Should it be part of the saga? Is it a spin-off like the rest of the games starring Yoshi? Here we count it as part of the same. And how not to do it: it has one of the most careful finishes of a Super Nintendo game, with those graphics like drawn on wax and that unique gameplay controlling Yoshi and throwing eggs. It’s true that some ideas and Baby Mario’s cries don’t quite work, but rarely has a saga been reinvented so well.
9) New Super Mario Bros (Nintendo DS)
We finish with the ‘New’ saga talking about the game that started it all. Nintendo DS, one of the best consoles in history, included powers like the super mushroom, with which we could destroy everything in our path, or the playful blue shell. It is true that this is a game that you can pass in a walk, but, at the same time, it is a joy to return to it again and again. In addition, it started a new saga that revived the game in a period of emptiness… In a more or less original way.
8) Super Mario 3D World (Wii U)
Mario and company can become crawlies. I don’t know what else a game needs to please absolutely everyone. Eight worlds, four extras, increasing difficulty, a heart-stopping final screen. Its only problem? That there are seven other undeniable titles in front of it. From here the mark is made between “the Mario games” and “THE Mario GAMES”. Attention.
7) Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
Yes, yes, it’s amazing. Fabulous. A masterpiece. But, at the same time, it repeated some concepts from the original game and you can tell it was originally being prepared as an improved version. But don’t let the trees keep you from seeing the forest: its creativity and ability to surprise are the order of the day and make it one of the best games, not just on Nintendo Wii, but in history. 242 stars to achieve: what a blessed madness.
6) Super Mario Bros (NES)
The game that started it all, the one whose 1-1 screen should be studied by all marketing, development and UX teams, which in just three minutes explains everything you need to know without the need for absurd tutorials. But beyond that, the world they managed to create in 1985 is still able to amaze today. A flower that throws fire, a mushroom that makes you big, secrets scattered here and there, perfect platforming: if you don’t like ‘Super Mario Bros’, it’s not for you.
5) Super Mario 64 (Nintendo 64)
The first 3D Mario game had to be something special after so many games on the NES and SNES. The new controls had to be understood immediately. And boy, did they get it: the first walk through the outskirts of the palace and the first time we got into a painting already sold you the gameplay, but the best thing is that we still had a lot to go. A word of advice: the Nintendo DS version, even if the purists don’t want to accept it, is even better.
4) Super Mario Odyssey (Switch)
The logical evolution of ‘Super Mario Galaxy’, with a tinge of ‘Super Mario Land 2’: crazy screens, each with its own rules, taking things from the open world and letting the charisma of Mario do the rest. Impossible not to enjoy it from start to finish on Switch: a waste of imagination, ideas, puzzles and secrets for completists that make it a walkthrough the first time we play… And a real challenge from there.
3) Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
After ‘Super Mario Sunshine’ failed to win over fans of the plumber, Nintendo had a tough mission ahead of them: to make a new ‘Super Mario 64’ that, at the same time, didn’t look like anything anyone had ever played before. And boy, did they succeed. Estela was a new character that immediately became a new piece of the family and the tone of the game, which could have been an absolute mistake, made it feel like part of the franchise from minute one. If you had a Wii and didn’t play ‘Super Mario Galaxy’, did you really have a Wii?
2) Super Mario Bros 3 (NES)
After ‘Super Mario Bros’, the saga needed a renewal in order not to be more of the same in its third part, the last one on NES. And they did it. More enemies, more differentiated areas, more powers (including Mario Tanuki’s) and a way of playing that polishes to perfection what we already saw in the first two games of the saga but without increasing the difficulty. An absolute revolutionary, influential and fabulous masterpiece.
1) Super Mario World (SNES)
What can we say about ‘Super Mario World’. Mario’s entry to the 16 bits introduced Yoshi, the flying cape, hidden routes, hidden keys… And best of all: 32 years later, the game is still as good as ever. From the first minute to the last, it’s the perfect Mario game: pretty to look at, easy to play, fun, and complicated when it comes to the end. Once we get there, there’s no movie that can take us. yahoo! mamma mia!
What is 'The Machinery Smurfs'? Where did it come from and how far were they able to go? Stay tuned, because this story is not expected.
Whether we like it or not, we cannot control our childhood. We can make anyone who will listen to us believe that when we were kids ‘The Godfather‘ was the best thing that ever happened to us instead of ‘Yuppie Worlds’ or that in our car we listened to Oasis instead of The Makinero Smurfs. Ah, yes. That album that in 1995 appeared in Spain from absolutely nowhere, three years after the death of Peyo and that made a whole generation dance. But, what is ‘Los Pitufos Makineros’, where did it come from and how far were they able to go? Stay tuned, because you are not expecting this story.
First, an introduction to The Smurfs: in 1958, Peyo had achieved success with the comic and epic adventures of a couple based on a brave man and his disastrous companion. Johan and Pirluit starred in 13 titles created by the author (and four others created after his death by other authors) and, unjustly, he is remembered for having seen the birth, in his ninth long story, of the Smurfs.
‘The Flute of Six Smurfs’ was, without knowing it, the beginning of the rest of Peyo’s life: after bringing them out as secondary characters in a couple more adventures of Johan and Pirluit, the village took on a life of its own and in 1959 ‘The Black Smurfs‘ and its mythical “¡Ñac!” had an unusual success that, after a good handful of comics, exploded with the American cartoon series that lasted from 1981 to 1990 for 258 episodes (quite decaffeinated for the most part, by the way).
It was around this time, in 1978, when The Smurfs made their first appearance in the world of music thanks to Father Abraham, the stage name of the Dutchman Petrus Antonius Laurentius “Pierre” Kartner (who died, by the way, last year), who made a song for the movie based on ‘The Six Smurfs’ Flute’. The single sold more than 400,000 units (although initially the lack of confidence made them print only 1000), and the subsequent album half a million. In Spain it arrived singing in our language in an album titled ‘El padre Abraham y sus pitufos’, with this song as an absolutely impossible advance.
Smurf makina
But it all ends: the Smurfs’ fame faded little by little as the TV series was increasingly considered a kitsch product and by the mid 90’s they were considered a rather finished franchise. But there was still one last attempt before spending a decade hibernating, and the key was not in Spain but, once again… in Holland.
EMI, owner of the franchise, no longer knew what to do with The Smurfs, and asked the Cat Music production team to do something, please, with the characters and some modern “Smurf” songs. At the beginning of 1995, a parody of 2Unlimited’s ‘No limit’ was the number one in Holland and opened the way: on April 6th of the same year ‘Tekkno ist cool’ was released in Belgium and Germany, with smurfed versions of Jam & Spoon or Maxx. The success was such that in September ‘Megaparty’ appeared, another album by Los Pitufos. In Holland, meanwhile, Irene Moors’ CDs with the Smurfs, such as ‘Ga je mee naar Smurfenland’ went double platinum. It was the beginning of a journey that would take them to cover ‘La macarena’ or the Spice Girls throughout Europe, where 8 million albums were sold between 1995 and 1998. We repeat: Eight. Millions.
And meanwhile, in Spain, what was happening in 1995? With the bakalao route in decline and dance and techno music opening up to all ages, it was only a matter of time before ‘Los pitufos makineros’ came to us, which had a different cover illustration than the rest of the European versions and in which songs like ‘Scatman’s world’ (‘Somos los pitufos’), ‘El tecno es guay’ (American Pie) or, of course, the ‘No limit’ that triumphed in its Dutch version, here as ‘Cumpleaños feliz’, were versioned. If you’re over thirty, it still resonates in your nightmares (“It’s your birthday, it’s your birthday, it’s your birthday”). This was just the beginning: success was assured.
Smurfs Mix
It must be taken into account that in the 90’s summer remix albums were an art form in Spain. Ever since ‘Max Mix’ opened the way in 1985, the different titles were making their way in the (then) turbulent Spanish market. Bolero Mix’, ‘Máquina total’ (which in 1995 sold more than in any other year with its seventh part), ‘Rumba total’ or ‘Ibiza Mix’ were what was played in every self-respecting summer beach bar. Los Pitufos makineros’ served not only as a parody but also as a children’s version for the whole family.
In 1996, Los Pitufos Makineros released ‘¡Vámonos a Ibiza!‘ with versions of ‘El tiburón’ (‘El campeón’), ‘Staying alive’ (‘¡Piérdete ya!’) or ‘Memories’ (‘El cole acabó’) as well as their own songs like ‘Pitufolimpiadas’ or ‘Futbolmanía’. The albums immediately abandoned the “makineros” with Spain and entered another more pop moment. Thus came out ‘Los Pitufos ¡van a tope!’ (1996) and ‘¡Viva Pitufos! Los Pitufos en directo’ (1997). This album was half a compilation of the three previous ones, but with new songs like the Smurf version of ‘Acompáñame’, the song from ‘Sorpresa, sorpresa, sorpresa’. The 90’s were definitely a thing.
From then on they tried to monetize as they could: ‘¡¡A bailar Pitufos!!!’ (1997), ‘Los Pitufos musicales’ (1997), ‘¡¡Corazón Pitufo! ‘ (1998) that versioned ‘Barbie Girl’ in ‘La pitufina’ or ‘Desátame’ in ‘Pitúfame’ or ‘Los Pitufos 2000’ (1999), with versions of ‘Mambo No 5’ (‘Vivo Pitufando’) or ‘Baby one more time’ (‘Juega otra vez pitufo’). The arrival of the 2000s did not remove the annual album from the team: ‘Los pitufos.com’ (2000) opened the range to explicit songs like ‘Sex bomb’ (‘Pitufos on line’) or ‘The bad touch’ (‘Todo al revés’). This was the last one edited by Arcade, which gave way to Divucsa and versions of exclusively Spanish songs, abandoning the international practices.
The albums continued until 2006: ‘Fiesta Pitufa’, the double ‘Festival Pitufo’, ‘Los Pitufos te desean un cumpleaños feliz’, ‘Los Pitufos ¡no paran! ‘ (with a bonus DVD containing the episode ‘Smurf buccaneer’ from the TV series), ‘Mola pitufar’ (with a CD of Christmas carols and karaoke included), ‘Mola pitufar’ and, finally, ‘Pitufando éxitos’, which included seven interactive games on a CD-ROM and which already showed a new musical style in songs such as ‘Me mola el rumbatón’, which parodied ‘Pa mi guerrera’.
Fourteen albums in eleven years and impossible versions of ‘Aserejé’, ‘Zapatillas’ or ‘I want it that way’ made Los Pitufos Makineros (and, later, Los Pitufos) one of those nostalgic milestones that are a bit embarrassing to remember. The good part is that we were not alone: in Hungary albums were released until 2011 and in Finland more than 19 different ones were sold. In the Czech Republic, in fact, their equivalent to our Makinero Smurfs was the best-selling album between 1994 and 2006.
There is only one international consolation left in the face of musical shame: no country could afford to cover ‘Wonderwall’: Oasis very explicitly requested that ‘Wondersmurf’ should not appear on any of these albums. Smurf it, Gallaghers!
