New Super Mario Bros Wii (Hands On)
Dude… it’s a Mario game – of course I’m excited!
Tags: Super Mario Bros Wii Categories: Previews, Wii Previews
Posted by Mike "Two Tone" McConnell on Sep 21st, 2009
Nintendo may have figured out that their characters are their real hot property. No matter how many senior centers and soccer moms put a Wii in the living room, it’s the guarantee that a new Mario and Zelda game will sell their systems. That’s why with the popularity of the Wii waning, and the system in search of a new hit; we saw two new Mario games announced at E3 this year.
The first was a follow up to Super Mario Galaxy, which reworks the games levels to give players a new (yet familiar) experience. The other was New Super Mario Bros Wii, which looks to be something … new. Four-player simultaneous play with a competitive edge makes the game have more in common with the side scrolling Smash Bros stages than a usual Mario outing. That competitive co-op can be irritating when someone you’re playing with just hugs the right side of the screen leaving the rest of the players constantly dying.
I’m quite sure this is the type of thing that would have ended friendships when I was a kid, and I’m sure it will do the same when it comes out. The whole competitive co-op design is something that I think bares some fleshing out. It fills in a nice niche where you don’t want to sit and blow the crap out of each other in Halo or Call of Duty, but you also want an element of competition. Nintendo has been trying to innovate in many spaces this console generation, but I think that remaking the way you look at co-op may be up there with the waggle controls.
The game takes a page out of the DS New Super Mario Bros and giving us an updated version of the Super Mario World graphics. That cartoon look is cemented in my mind, and likely those of my peers, as the way that Mario looks. I like the 3D games but something about a 2D Mario game just feels right. This really plucks the chords of nostalgia for me making this a must play.
There are supposed to be a ton of new suits, of which I only briefly saw the penguin suit. They really are going all out to bring back memories of Super Mario Bros 3. This isn’t a slam at all; nostalgia is a key component of the Mario series. If you want to see what happens when a classic series abandons all notions of nostalgia and tries to “keep up with the times” go watch Space Jam.
The slow rebirth of platform games, especially side-scrollers, needs a real champion. The sack boys from Little Big Planet were close, but this is the real deal. Like the resurgence of adventure games, I am not sure how long it will last, and I’m not sure I care, but I am excited to get to play these games again. I am getting this game for sure when it comes out in November.
[ Post the first comment | View related posts ]
Tags: Super Mario Bros Wii
Posted by Mike "Two Tone" McConnell on Sep 21st, 2009 and is filed under Previews, Wii Previews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
