Jumpman Review: "New Super Mario Bros. Wii"

I missed Mario. Sure, there’s been a great Mario game on each of Nintendo’s last three consoles, but it’s just not the same when he’s in three dimensions. Mario is the one character that I don’t want to see punching bad guys in the face. NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. WII gives me the chance to stomp on goombas again.

Not much has changed. Bowser has stolen Princess Peach, again, and Mario will stomp on any residents of the Mushroom Kingdom who get in the way. And if you haven’t played a Mario game since SUPER MARIO WORLD was released nearly 20 years ago, don’t worry.The title character has a few new costumes, and he’s learned how to jump off of walls, but he’s still Jumpman at heart.

In addition to the fire flower and super mushroom common to all Super Mario games and the tiny mushroom that showed up in the Mario for Nintendo DS, New Super Mario Bros. Wii introduces an ice flower, a propeller suit and a penguin suit. The ice flower lets Mario freeze most bad guys into blocks of ice. When in the penguin suit, he shoots ice, swims quickly and can slide on his stomach. In the propeller suit, Mario can shoot straight up in the air and float down. Unfortunately, to get Mario to spin, you have to shake the Wii remote up and down, which isn’t precise or very natural. It’s not going to kill you often, but it is going to happen once or twice.

The propeller suit is handy, but handles poorly.

But aside from that one irksome control scheme, New Super Mario Bros. Wii oozes polish. Most levels are short, tightly designed obstacle courses that can be dashed through at full speed if you have the skill, and confidence, to jump at each right moment.

Three big coins are hidden in each level, and the coins can be traded for movies in Princess Peach’s castle in the first kingdom. These movies are worth unlocking. Some of them reveal the big coins you haven’t found yet, some of them reveal secret level exits, but the most interesting ones are the super skill videos that show off amazing precision work by people playing the game. The skill videos are fun to watch and give you ideas for how to up your game, which is important for the multiplayer portion of the game.

Players can work together to play through the game in coop mode, they can compete for scores, kills and coins in free for all, or they can compete for coins in coin battle

Luigi controls the lights while everyone else plays the level.

No mode works well well with two players. My roommate and I did little more than send each other to our deaths when we tried to help each other in coop mode. And if one player has more experience with the game, coin battles and free for all are lopsided and frustrating for the other player. A third or fourth player makes each mode more chaotic. That detracts from coop, but evens the playing field during coin battles and free for all because weaker players can conspire to doom the better players (like Luigi, the jerk).

It’s a testament to Nintendo’s polish that neither single nor multiplayer mode feels tacked on, and it’s hard to say which style of play is more enjoyable. Among the multiplayer options, coin battle is the clear winner for me, but my solo playthrough was only broken by sleep and work. If you have access to three friends who want to play the game, use them, but it’s not a big deal if you don’t. Either way, “New Super Mario Bros. Wii” is an ode to the two-dimensional side-scrolling plumber platformers of the 8- and 16-bit consoles, and I couldn’t be happier.