If you’ve spent any time making Miis for use in Wii Sports, Warioware, Wii play and (supposedly) the whole slew of upcoming Wii games with Mii support, you’ve undoubtedly hit an artistic roadblock now and then - finding yourself simply unable to find the right combination of features, sizes and positions to make the thing look like whoever you’re trying to ‘draw’. I know I have. Sometimes the right eye shape, or head shape, or hairstyle which I deem ‘necessary’ to capture someone’s essence, simply isn’t there.

But, there are a few very simple yet very effective techniques you can use, to complete many of those difficult Miis, and at the same time, customize the look of your designs.

Custom Eye Shapes - Using eyebrows to re-shape stock eyes

A lot of people on the planet have squinty, nearly triangular eyes that end in points on the outsides. Take a look at the eye shape of singer Pink, and actors Denzel Washington and John Goodman:

Yet for no good reason, there is no such eye shape to be found in the choices in the Mii Channel. Attempting to Mii-ifiy the famous people above, we are seemingly without any good choices:

However, by using eyebrows the same color as the skin or the hair, you can overlap them over a portion of the eye, it will blend almost perfectly, and give you a custom eye shape that not only completes your difficult Miis, but give your Miis a look that most people won’t have seen before:

Note the new eye shapes that come much closer to representing the subjects’ own eyes, than any standard Mii palette eye would. This trick works with many eye/eyebrow combinations.

Tired of the basic shapes and have you been growing bored with what seemed possible artistically, given the limited choices? Now there is virtually no end to your options for shaping the eye area.

Customized Mouths - non-mustache uses of the mustache

Also take a look at the mouths in the above examples… Denzel Washington’s jaw shape is detailed by the use of a flesh colored (or nearly flesh-colored) mustache. Instead of serving as a mustache, the lines serve to accent the upper lip/upper jaw area.

But more dramatically, look at Pink’s mouth… We used one of the mustache features, carefully sized and postioned over her mouth, to create the impression that her mouth is open! We used the same trick with Macauley Culkin:

This is little more than a variation on the eyebrow trick - but if you’re like me, you’ve cursed the fact that the only Mii palette options for an opened mouth, have no red lips around them. But with the mustache/mouth AND the mole together, we get a mouth area that at a glance, seems to break out of the stylistic boundaries imposed by the Mii palette. Many people who saw this design wondered if it was Photoshopped. But it isn’t - you can build it legit!

And that’s it for now… there will be more in Part 2…. in the meantime, play around with it.

Next installment: Custom noses, and Feature Exaggeration - Friend or Foe? (yes, it’s a cheesy title… but the examples will be cool, promise.)

Yes, The Simpsons avatar generators are without a doubt inspired by the popularity of Miis. End of discussion

There are two such generators that I’m aware of - one at simpsonsmovie.com, and another, sponsored by Burger King, at simpsonizeme.com. The latter, in my opinion, is far superior.

Simpsonizeme.com has a more amusing avatar creation interface than the one on the official Simpsons site, it uses face recognition software to analyze your uploaded photo to generate a ‘Simpsonized’ rendition of your face (and does a reasonably good job, I might add) and then allows you to tweak, a la Mii Channel. Finally, it lets you download a finished image of your avatar in a Springfield-esque backdrop of your choosing:

My sister gets simpsonized

Does it do a good job? It depends… as with Mii-making, choosing the basic features (which in this case, is handled by the software) is just the beginning; fine-tuning is the most important element. If you’re willing to take the time to fiddle with all of the features (and put up with intermittent lag, as the site is popular and can get slow), you can put together a pretty solid likeness.

Here’s mine:

C.J.V. Simpson

For the last week or so, I’ve been addicted to Super Mario 2… and not the SMB2 most of you are familiar with.

My cousin Carl MSNed me one afternoon, and said he was playing the Real Super Mario 2. Intrigued, I asked some questions, and in response he sent me a ROM file.

For those of you familiar with classic console and arcade emulation, feel free to skip this paragraph and the next two.

For those unfamiliar with the wonders of emu gaming, I’ll be brief…. Nowadays you can download free applications (which run on modern computers - Windows, Mac, Linux, whatever you use) called emulators… these programs essentially duplicate and perform as retro computer hardware. Combined with a ROM file (which contains the original game, byte for byte), an emulator brings classic, obsolete video games back to life, and runs them exactly as they originally ran.

In other words, even though the NES is 22 years old, and been out of production for over a decade, and your Mom sold your old NES at a flea market for 3 dollars, you can install a virtual NES on your computer, find ROM files (virtual NES game paks), plug in a joystick or sync your Wiimote to your computer via Bluetooth, and experience these games exactly as nature intended.  And no blowing on the cartridge required!  Pwnage.

For information on finding emulators and ROMs, hold tight; I’ll discuss it briefly at the end of this post.

Anyway, back to SMB 2… time for a little history lesson:

According to Wikipedia folklore, the real Super Mario Bros. 2 was never released in North America because Nintendo of America employees felt the game was “too difficult and confusing”.

In light of the development of video games over the past 20 years, these charges seem ridiculous today, when one looks at the game in question.  But, the game was indeed canned, and another game nearly ready for release, called Doki Doki Panic, was slightly re-tooled, Mario-esque sprites were inserted, and a game which was never conceived of as a Mario title, was released as Super Mario 2.

Over a decade later, the lost Mario game was released, in a sense… it premiered in North America as Super Mario Bros. - The Lost Levels. It was souped up with better graphics and sound effects, but the gameplay remained essentially the same, with only a couple of minor changes.

However, all of this occurred before retro gaming became a pursuit for enthusiasts.  Released with little fanfare, as a mere supplemental, bonus title on Super Mario All-Stars (a best-of compilation), many years too late to be cutting edge, but many years too soon to be ‘retro’, The Lost Levels were largely ignored.  The game, which is terrific in my opinion, was in a sense, wasted.

Let me assert that I’m not in any way knocking the SMB2 we’re familiar with. Without that game, many Mario standards (character switching, throwing vegetables, Shyguys, etc.) would hever have been established… SMB2 is a legitimate part of Mario’s legacy.

Nonetheless, for people like myself who grew up on the NES, coming across the ROM of a lost game, was a real trip. A Mario game, over 20 years old, that I’d never played!

And when I sat down and got into the game, I was instantly hooked.  This is easily the most difficult Mario game ever.  It requires premium Mario 1 skills, and many sections of the game require you to Ninja your way through things with ridiculous precision.  It satisfies my sense of nostalgic adoration for the original Super Mario Bros. (as it looks and behaves exactly like the original NES release title, including the theme music, the enemies, the level structure, etc.) and at the same time gives me a brand-new set of puzzles and fresh doses of Mario twitch-action with which to bombard my nervous system… a brand new game, with the same flavor as the stuff I grew up on.

Comparing this non-release with the original Super Mario 1 (the most successful, most played platform game of all time) with regards to difficulty, is a no-brainer - I remember SMB1 getting pretty easy over time, with the exception being World 8. World 8-2 and 8-3 in particular, were difficult no matter how many times you played them. Well, many sections of the Real Super Mario 2 fit this description.  Does a springboard-to-floating turtle-to-floating turtle-to-single block platform jump combination, in strong wind, with Lakitu spikies raining down on you, and WALKING Hammer Bros. to greet you on the other side, sound ridiculous to you? Me too.  This is why I love this game.

But, I don’t want to ruin it, so I won’t discuss the gameplay in detail… I want you to experience it for yourself.  You should try this one because:

-It’s retro, and retro stuff is cool

-It’s unreleased, and having unreleased material is cool

-It’s incredibly difficult, and beating it will give you a sense of satisfaction

-It’s incredibly difficult, and beating it will give you bragging rights, and the right to claim status as a perennial Nintendo Master

Now, the really tricky part…. finding the game….Emulators are easily available.  Google “NES emulator” and you’ll get tons of results.  Start your journey there.  And as for the game itself….

Unfortunately, I cannot legally link to the ROM file… it still belongs to Nintendo and the game can’t legally be distributed without their consent… but suffice to say that if you look around, or ask the right people nicely, you can find it…

Finally, the fact that all of this is unfolding for me in the Wii era, brings to mind a fairly obvious question…. why isn’t The Real Super Mario 2 a virtual console title??

If you’d like to see that happen, post a comment… if I get enough of a response, I’ll forward it to Nintendo.

Excited yet? You’re a REAL gamer aren’t you?  Well then get out there, use your Google skills… then use your ninja platform game skills… then puff your chest out a little, with the knowledge that you’ve located, played, and defeated the most difficult Nintendo game ever made.