I was watching an episode of "Robot Chicken" the other night when I saw this skit about Mario and Luigi riding along in their cart down a cute cartoon road. They take a right turn towards a city, that the viewer finds out is actually Vice City, from Grand Theft Auto. Mario and Luigi run into a little bit of trouble, as you can imagine. It's hilarious because the creator of this cartoon used satire to meld the prominent characteristics of both popular games into one event.
watch it here on youtube.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHd5b3Mb2eQ
I know it sounds silly, but each game really does have its own universe. And no matter how far the paratextual elements of video games extend, they very rarely extend to the universes of other video games.
One example I can think of where a video game incorporated many characters from several games into one is _____________ (fill in the blank cause I can't find the title). Anyway, it was a game that incorporated characters from Mario Brothers, Final Fantasy, Zelda etc...all the uber-popular video games, and their characters, got together for a battle in a completely separate universe. None of the worlds in which they fought (Mortal Kombat style) were interactive, you as the player only interacted with your opponent. So my point is that games' universes are separate. You can pull the characters out and put them together with other video game characters, but you can't take the video game worlds and put them together, and if you did you'd have something a-kin to the "Robot Chicken" Mario in Vice City episode; nonsense.
This hillarious cartoon shows that Mario and Luigi don't belong in a place like Vice City.
Aha! I just found something else on youtube.com about Mario in Vice City that might have been the inspiration for the cartoon creators of "Robot Chicken."
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Super Mario Mod 2 by:jessrocked
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EANBQDrm
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