Video games are very popular in this day and age, with over 2.77 billion people playing them, according to We Play Holding. The Red and White staff decided to ask several teachers what some of their favorite video games were in their younger years. 

One of the most popular video games that both government teacher Mrs. Allyson Durney and math teacher Mr. Jonathan Virgilio  enjoyed were the “Super Mario” games.

“My first gaming system was a Super Nintendo. I was very big into ‘Super Mario World.’ That was the one where you had Yoshi. Then ‘Super Mario Three.’ We also had ‘Super Mario Allstars.’ We were very into ‘Super Mario,’” Mrs. Durney said.

Mr. Virgilio is also extremely passionate about ‘Super Mario.’ 

“My favorite game of all time from that system was ‘Super Mario Brothers Three.’ Why? Because you could fly. You could transport to different worlds. You had cards of different powers that you could use throughout the game,” he said.

Mr. Virgilio remembers playing the game for so many hours that he developed blisters on his thumbs, but that didn’t stop him. 

“I would leave the game paused overnight, because I didn’t want to lose my place. I love ‘Super Mario Brothers Three.’ It changed my life.”

“Super Mario Brothers Three” is a platform game with the typical Yoshi, Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, and many more of the original characters. It can be played on Wii U, 3DS, Nintendo Switch, and NES Classic Edition Console. It is rated ages 6+. 

While “Super Mario Brothers” was one of Mr. Virgilio’s favorite games, it was not the only game that he played.

“I was born in 1985. In 1989 we got the Nintendo Entertainment System, the original, the first one. It came with ‘Mario Brothers,’ ‘Duck Hunt,’ and the power pad,” he said. 

While those were some popular games in that day and age, another one of the Bellefonte teachers enjoys games that are a little more recent. 

“I’ve loved playing PC and Xbox games since middle school. I played a lot of ‘Halo’ and ‘Age of Empires’ when I was in high school and college. I still play both today,” biology teacher Mr. Chris Freidhoff said. 

“Halo” is a military science fiction media franchise. It was a launch title for the original Xbox and was very popular before “Call of Duty” took over. There were over 102,000 players in-game when the game was first released. “Halo” is rated Mature for blood, gore, and violence. 

“Age of Empires” is in a series of video games and is based on historical real-time strategies. It is the first in the series of nine. This game has been rated PEGI 12 for depictions of non-realistic looking violence towards human-like and animal-like characters, and use of mild bad language.

While it sometimes feels like students can’t really connect with teachers, take a step back and realize that they were kids once too and that they may just love video games more than the students thought.