What We've Been Waiting For -- New Super Mario Brothers Wii

We picked up New Super Mario Brothers Wii yesterday day, and wow it's good. New Super Mario Brothers Wii does for platforming what Uncharted 2 does for 3rd-person action-adventure. It pushes the boundaries and treads new ground while retaining a core game that is accessible for any player, and looks really good doing it.

First of all the game is adorable. The very first thing I noticed running through the first level (1-1) was the music, and the reactions of the enemies to the music. At a certain point in the music loop, during a kind of drum backbeat, the koopa troopers do a little shimmy and shake to the music, and the goombas do a little jump sequence. In some of the overworld sections, the trees sway to the beat. The new costumes, especially the penguin suit, are incredibly cute. The rest of the characters, enemies, and environments have a colorful charm, and is one of the best looking games on the Wii. The sounds match, with pieces you can hear borrowed from other games. I've heard original NES sounds, Super Mario Galaxy bits, and lots of original additions, including the cartoon-y penguin suit flipper steps, all with perfect fidelity and excellent timing.

But all this cuteness and attention to presentation doesn't take away from the game itself. It's classic tight platforming controls in a dynamic environment. There are more things that move, shoot, twist, and tilt than ever before. There are some truly challenging sequences, and situations that explore new ground in the Mario series. I've had a lot of "Oh, wow!" moments, usually just before dying because I'm too busy enjoying the view.

Thankfully, 1ups and powerups are all over the dang place. You can barely swing a penguin flipper without slamming into a Toad house (where you can win powerups to carry along with you like in Super Mario 3), or you can rescue a poor captured toad stuffed into a chest or ? block for red mushrooms or 1ups. There are red coin sequences throughout many levels that give freebies, and hidden 1ups right where you'd expect -- hidden areas, invisible blocks, and rapid starman runs. See world 1-2 for the most fun you can have with a star ever!

Several new mechanics I've enjoyed: First, I really like the motion controls. There are these platforms or other objects in the game world you can orient by tilting the Wii remote. Picture a flat platform in front of the flag. You can tilt the controller way to your left, and the platform follows suit, so you can run up it and hit the top of the flag. There are variations on this where you have to dodge incoming shots, illuminate dark areas, or capture items above and below you. Really cool moments.

Also the new suits are a lot of fun, and they expand the game options. The penguin suit (and ice flower suit, similarly) allows you to make stepping stones out of your enemies to get to high places. There's a level where there are probably eight million Bullet Bills. Here, if you have the penguin suit or ice flower, you can turn danger into opportunity by freezing those fools and jumping right up them like icy stpes. If you have enough nerve, you can actually attract a big group of them all the way to the end of the level where you can freeze them all and jump up to the top of the flagpole to get a 1up. All sorts of opportunities for mischief.

The levels in the game offer great reasons for replay. Not only are you competing on points, but you're collecting all the star coins to unlock various things, as well as trying to find all the secret endings to various levels -- especially the Boo houses! Somehow I wandered out of a secret exit in a ghost house in world 3, and took a cannon shot to world six! Wasn't expecting that.

Oh, and the game will actually PLAY FOR YOU when you suck too bad. Last night I just died endlessly on this tough stage, I was just flaking out. The game told me "It looks like you're terrible -- would you like Luigi to take the lead there?" I said "Hell yes! Play yourself." Then I sat back and watched the Green Man play through. Guess Luigi's good for something after all!

All this talk of the one player experience of course leads right into the multiplay features. With up to four players in a level at a time, there are some mad crazy hijinks. It actually makes the game tougher, but this probably isn't surprising. Unlike a four-player game like LittleBigPlanet, in NSMB you can collide with other players. I constantly find myself trying to run somewhere, only to find another player's character in my way. So if you're all trying to run up a platform that is rapidly dropping off the screen, you're limited by the slowest player. This game can end even the strongest of friendships.

Probably the best way to experience multiplay isn't by going through the main game cooperatively, but instead doing coin battles or free-for-all game modes with multiple players. In this way, since you've already beat the level to progress through the main story mode, you can unlock that level to play multiplay. You can then compete to get the best score or the most coins with other players. That has proven to be a lot of fun, because there's less riding on the line. If you all fail out, you don't have to use a continue or restart a critical boss level.

Whew. Nearly a thousand words later, I still have more things to say about how much I like this game. But this is enough for now. If you have a soul, and you have a Wii, this game will entertain you and actual, in-person, meatspace friends for hours and hours. You will marvel at the ingenious and devilish level designs and wow over the cute and amazing spectacle. You will experience the joy of victory and (if you are like me) the agony of defeat. But most of all you will have a lot of fun.