Man Invents The Water Jet Pack From Mario Sunshine

Remember back when the GameCube first came out, Mario made his debut on the console with Super Mario Sunshine? The entire game had you running around with the strangest weapon ever, a water canon. What was cool was that you could actually use the canon to propel yourself into the air like a jet pack. Apparently someone played that game just a bit too much.

Raymond Li has filed a patent for a "personal propulsion device." While that may not sound like anything special, the device actually propels you by shooting out water. That definitely doesn't sound like a Mario game.

It looks like this hasn't quite entered the production phase, but he seems to have thought it out pretty well. I'm not concerned with how well it can propel me into the air, but rather how hard the landing is going to be.

Water-Jet Pack Patented: The Jet Ski of 2020? [via wired]