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Gamertell Review: New Super Mario Bros. Wii
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New Super Mario Bros Wii exudes games of olde, melding the best aspects of pretty much every Mario-based platformer ever made and then some.
But it’s more than just a jumpastic, coin gathering platformer. It’s a speed trek through gaming nostalgia that pretty much any gamer will enjoy.
Nice Hat
Still in the box the fist thing you notice is that Nintendo has opted for a red box instead of the standard white now infamous for Wii games. While meant to exude some additional nostalgia for That means you’ll be able to immediately pick out the game not matter which shelf you store it on.
As soon as you open it, the manual nearly bursts out of its twin plastic tabs holding it in. A massive 60+ page, unheard of for most consoles games (note that it is in three languages, so third of it is in English). Even the art on the manual is meant to reinforce the idea of older games with pixelated images of Mario and Luigi.
Upon launching the game you are greeted by the voice of our friendly pipe fixer belting a greeting in his big ol’ faux accent, ending with an appropriately elongated “Wi-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-!” From there you use big Wii-ish menu buttons to get to the game.
Something a Olde
Right away you’ll notice a couple multiplayer minigames available as well as the main, cooperative single- or multi-player game. The main game uses the 3D map system started with Super Mario Bros. 3 and includes castles, hidden paths, periodic extra challenges and mushroom houses.
While one player controls map movement and main choices, everything else is cooperative with all the characters stomping, jumping and otherwise wandering the world together. It can make finding hidden blocks a breeze as well as clearing particularly pesky opponents.
The screen widens as characters separate but there is a maximum width which makes some sense since, otherwise, everything wold become unbearably tiny.
To play you use the WiiMote (Nunchuck attachment is optional) held sideways, a la an old school controller with much the same controls as ye olde games utilized, continuing the nostalgic feel of the game even further.
The story, opponents, actions, objects, the ending flagpole and even the background music are all familiar, blending aspects of multiple Mario games into one massive - and more modern - platformer.
From there things get some modern tweaks. Rolling hills actually role in different directions, often allowing a pipe, tunnel or deadly nook to rotate around. You can triple jump through a level (nice of them to lay things out that way) but then you’ll miss all the hidden bits that make these 2D platformers fun.
Nintendo has also made going back to earlier levels an enjoyable task, giving you reasons to return and try to defeat each board more way than one (and likely find more hidden pipes, tunnels and treasures).
Most of the older powerups are there with revamped graphics and more outfits have been added to the wardrobe of available power suits. One of the earliest is a propeller super suit that lets you fly up and drift back to the ground, much like the Raccoon suit but without needing a bunch of runway space. Instead shaking the WiiMote gets you off the ground. You’ll even get to ride a Yoshi.
Something a Annoying
And here’s where some of the annoyances come into play. The WiiMote, while making for a lovely sideways style NES remote system, sometimes bundles motion controls in an awkward way. To grab objects, for example, you need to swing the controller up and press the 1 button. Sounds simple enough but you can also shake the WiiMote up and down to perform a Spin Jump (which also sprays whatever projective powerup you have enabled). The two often get crossed so not only are you grabbing an object but also leaping into the air and tossing whatever you just grabbed (shell, Toad, frozen opponent, etc.) when you might have waned to hold onto it a bit longer.
Timing characters’ jumps is also a little drift-y, with gravity seeming just lighter enough to throw off an expert old school gamer for the first dozen or so levels until they fully adapt to the difference.
Finally, when multiple players are on the screen, the old school stick-together-or-else rule apply. Find a pipe and want to gather bonuses, everyone else needs to jump in with you. Also, whenever someone gets a nifty powerup, the pregnant powerup pause kicks in making everyone on the screen wait for that awkward second. While the screen resizing is a pretty nice aspect (it means you’re not limited to one crappy screen’s worth of stuff to do and don’t need to stay completely huddled together) it can throw off your timing and result in a lot of extra deaths. In rare circumstances it can also cause a character to get irrecoverably stuck between a rock and the game border.
Something a New
To make up for some of the annoyances Nintendo has added a Hints section that unlocks as you play (and cost giant gold coins to actually watch the hint videos). One is a so-called Unlimited Extra Lives that has you speed-Triple Jumping through one of the earliest levels. Time it perfectly and you do ring up a bunch of 1-Ups, but not really Unlimited (unless you return to that world ad nauseam),
All of the graphics have been overhauled so that fireballs have a lot of extra flames, ice balls trail ice and most everything moves a lot smoother. That might contribute to the feeling of slightly lighter gravity but, overall, it makes the game that much more enjoyable to look at, even if a lot of the elements are taken from older, lower-res games.
One of the many nice additions is that gamers can be added or dropped between levels so you can start the as a single player and have one to three friends hop in and help at almost an time.
It’s a Fun a game
This game is as fun and as silly as expected but not without a few mostly forgivable faults. There’s so much to do, see and enjoy in this game that it’s hard to let any faults weigh it down for very long.
Do not mistake this as an extended port of the DS version of New Super Mario Bros. As fun as that game may be, this one has so much more and the up-to-four player option makes it even more of a group event.
New Super Mario Bros. Wii does well integrating the many disparate elements of previous Mario games and blending them with new elements so both older and newer gamers have something to enjoy and appreciate.
Site [New Super Mario Bros. Wii] Photo Gallery [Gamertell]
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