Game & Watch: Mario’s Cement Factory

Genre: Arcade

Players: 1

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Review:

The Game and Watch was a line of single-game handheld game devices that Nintendo started selling in 1980, five years before the Nintendo Entertainment System and 9 years before the Game Boy. They were advanced for the time, though of course by today’s standards they will seem extraordinarily primitive, with each game consisting of only a few images, with the game implying movement by making these images appear and disappear.

Over the years, these games have repeatedly been simulated (they can’t exactly be “ported” as their original display method was different than those of more modern videogames) in various forms. In 2010, a series of 9 such simulated Game & Watch games were released separately on Nintendo DSi via the DSiWare service, and those games were grandfathered into the Nintendo 3DS.

Mario’s Cement Factory, first released in 1983, is the thirty-fifth Game & Watch game ever released, the second game in the “New Wide Screen” line of those handheld devices. Its gameplay has the player playing as… is that supposed to be Mario? Mr. Game and Watch? It’s hard to tell, but you move them around a cement factory, taking elevators to four different switches to release cement filling up buckets before they overflow. However, you must be careful where you walk so you don’t fall down the elevator shaft when the elevator isn’t on your floor yet.

As the last game in this particular collection of Game & Watch games, it’s also the most complex, yet despite this its gameplay is still surprisingly compelling. However, it’s a bit slow-paced, and it takes some time to get used to this game’s deliberate pacing.

Like many games in the series, this game has “Game A” and “Game B” options, but that only seems to function as a difficulty selector, with “Game B” being more difficult, bringing cement to your buckets more quickly.

In addition to the Game A and Game B options, players can opt to read instructions (modern typed instructions, nothing the original had), look at a “time” function (just looking at the device’s screen in its non-gameplay state), and…that’s about it.

The game itself uses simple monochrome visuals like the original game had (with static color overlays), with a border made to look vaguely like the original Game & Watch system. Its sounds are just clicks and beeps that were in the original game. Only the synthesized music in the main menu provides any significant new presentation element here.

Before wrapping this up, I should note that a version of this game was included in Game and Watch Gallery 4 for the Game Boy Advance, which is available on the Wii U Virtual Console.

For a mere $2, Game & Watch: Mario’s Cement Factory is a solid “port” of one of Nintendo’s earliest handheld games. It’s fairly simple and shallow by today’s standards, and the presentation won’t excite anyone except those who had nostalgia for the original game. In my opinion, this is the best of this selection of Game & Watch games, offering a little more complexity without sacrificing the simplicity that makes the best of these games compelling. Ball and Vermin are still probably the most accessible of these games, but in my opinion Mario’s Cement Factory is overall the best.

tl;dr – Game & Watch: Mario’s Cement Factory is a recreation of one of Nintendo’s first handheld videogames (predating the Game Boy by six years), and it’s faithful to the original, which means an archaic presentation and simple, shallow gameplay. However, out of all of the Game & Watch games released in this run of “ports”, I think Mario’s Cement Factory does the best job of bringing some complexity to the gameplay while still maintaining the compelling simplicity the best games in the series featured.

Grade: C

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