Universal Announces Nintendo Rides, Attractions and We Just Fainted From Excitement

Gabe Zaldivar
by Gabe Zaldivar
Last updated: 1:56 PM ET, Thu May 7, 2015

Image via YouTube

As the ineffably awesome Luigi once remarked while you hit the A button at just the right time in Mario Kart, "Here we go!"

Via a press release, Nintendo-purveyors of games that allow you to waste glorious time indoors-and Universal-purveyors of attractions that entertain outside-are teaming up for rides that will tickle the fancy of anyone who has ever picked up a Nintendo controller.

The release states specifically, "Nintendo and Universal Parks & Resorts today announced plans to bring the world of Nintendo to life at Universal theme parks - creating spectacular, dedicated experiences based on Nintendo's wildly popular games, characters and worlds."

Universal Orlando celebrated the joint venture with the following, somewhat reserved tweet:

We say reserved because this is the kind of news that demands a confetti show like the one that follows a "Mario Kart" session or the champagne bottle you normally pop in front of friends when you actually win the game with arbitrary rules, "Mario Party."

Now the press release offers little in the form of concrete details, but it does state: "The immersive experiences will include major attractions at Universal's theme parks and will feature Nintendo's most famous characters and games. More details will be announced in the future, as the Nintendo and Universal creative teams work to create specific concepts."

By now you are already washing in the waters of childhood nostalgia, but we'd like to give you a chance at another dip:

And there is also news of the new "Mario Maker" game, which comes on the heels of "Super Mario Bros" turning 30:

While we have no clue as to which parks or what characters will feature, we do know that some sort of Nintendo "Land" will envelop fans shortly.

We might give a few suggestions.

Perhaps a Mario Kart ride that allows us to actually speed around and throw red shells at friends.

And, if they are taking from our own experiences, perhaps they can have an "Adventure of Link" journey where we mill about for 15 minutes and then revisit the game again in a few months when we forget where we left off.

In either case we are beyond excited for what is essentially bringing our childhood to life.


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