• Summary

• Reviews

• News
• Images
• Videos
• Downloads
• Hints & Cheats

Genre: Platformer Publisher: Nintendo Developer: Nintendo Players: 1-4

By RyanD (24th Nov 2009)

So there’s a new New Mario. The old New Mario was pretty damn sweet, I reckon, and another new Mario is always a good thing. A lot of people don’t reckon, however, they reckon it’s too cutesy, too the-same-as-the-last-one, too old school. I think we’re about to learn that we’re both right, but mainly that I am more right, and that they are idiots. And if you agree with me, then you’re right too, congratulations!

The gaming population of the world can be measured by the way they answer this question:

Q: Do you like Mario?

Through my extensive research I have discovered four possible answers to this question:
A. Yes.
B. No, I require more first-person disembowellings in order to enjoy myself.
C. lol ur gay ur ded fag i stab u.
D. I do not know who you are talking about as I was born and raised in a disused refrigerator.

Allow me to address each of these answers in turn.

If A: I have no idea why you are reading this, go get the damn game, stupid! You’re gunna freak out.

If B: Do not buy the game. Also, do not sit next to me on the bus.

If C: Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

If D: You must be living in a disused internet refrigerator, and welcome to a wonderful new world.

So, D-group, to summarise what you may have missed: Mario is a guy in a red hat that eats mushrooms and goes through the same repetitive fantasy, in which he jumps on turtles’ heads, through forests where the trees have eyes, in order to save the same princess from the same guy over and over and over again until the end of time. The Mario series (this, by any dignified definition, excludes any sports-themed games or tie-ins with Sonic, who is a douche) is also the benchmark by which all Platforming Games, either 2D, 3D or presumably the 4D games of the future are, have been, and always shall be measured.



The team behind the Mario platformers pretty much invented everything (and I mean everything, no arguments), and they are consistently refining and redefining their own damn-near-perfect system. Importantly, and uniquely, they do it better every time (let’s just leave Super Paper Mario out of this for now). Remember how cool Super Mario World was? And how much cooler New Super Mario Bros on the DS was? Well, it’s exactly that much cooler again on the Wii.

If Mario didn’t invent Platforming itself (he didn’t, apparently that was done by something called Frogs in 1978. Thanks Wikipedia, for ridding the world of all trivial mysteries), he certainly found it, liked it, dragged it home and comprehensively made it his bitch. It doesn’t matter that the story hasn’t changed at all for the last 28 years, and it doesn’t matter that it’s rated E-for-Everyone, because beneath that same old cutesy Italian-American-Stereotype exterior beats a Japanese heart of pure malevolence. You may yawn and dawdle your way through the first few levels, but it will be all too brief. Before you know it, you’ll be stretching your creaking thumb muscles, gritting your teeth, turning purple, neck-tendons bulging, sombrely marching back into the same level again and again, for another dose of punishment. The Zen Master of Mario stands over you, chuckling, stroking his moustache, the bamboo cane falls across your knuckles yet again: “You lack discipline!”



Note: The ESRB rating does not necessarily apply to the language that will leave your mouth while playing New Super Mario Brothers Wii. Not half an hour ago, I believe I told my Wii console to “Go fuck a shit,” whatever that means. Whether that says more about Mario or myself I’m not sure.

There are no difficulty settings, only Difficulty itself, Difficulty Incarnate.

Fortunately for you, like all Mario platformers, due to the number of alternate routes and shortcuts in the hub world, it is possible to finish the game while having only completed about a third of the levels. But if you are, like me, a filthy Completist, you’ll find yourself somehow drawn back against your own better judgement, as if to an abusive lover, again and again until you’ve covered every tormented square inch of the place. If that sounds like you too, you’re in for a long, rough, pretty frikken awesome ride.

If it absolutely positively gets too much, after you’ve failed enough, this new New Super Mario Bros will actually offer to show you how it’s done. That may not make it any easier to actually execute what you’ve been shown, but at least you’ll feel pathetic. And if all else fails, you can, now, call for backup.



The big new addition to this Mario instalment is the ability to play through the entire game with up to four players simultaneously on the one screen. Does that sound ridiculous? It is. And it’s crazy-fun, mainly because it’s so simple. It’s not just one-or-two dumbed-down co-op-only levels, it’s the whole game, unchanged, except your mates are in there too, and you have to share. That’s where it gets interesting. You and your mates can illustrate the exact kind of friendship you have in real life, in the venue of Mario Land. Be that helpful and caring (this will make the game a lot easier), passive-aggressive in the guise of helpful and caring (this will keep the unholy difficulty about the same), or outright dickishness (this will make the game impossible. Wonderful, but impossible).

The opportunities for douchebaggery are almost endless. For example: Your little brother is crying. He’s been trying for the last four hours to make just one of the many necessary microsecond-perfect running-jumps over a pit of instant death. You tell him not to worry, and jump into the game. You can stand on the edge, let him jump off your head and make it easily. Or you could jump over first-try (because you are a huge nerd), wait until he’s about to make it, and throw a turtle at him, and bathe in the sound of his tears as you finish the level yourself, and laugh, and laugh, and laugh, and wonder what the hell you’ve done with your life, and stop laughing.



Regardless of how much of a jerk you are, suffice it to say that there are plenty worse ways to spend your money than on New Super Mario Brothers Wii, for instance: any Wii game without Mario in it (and let’s just keep ignoring Super Paper Mario altogether, shall we? Good).

Final note: If, for some bizarre reason, there’s any Mario fans reading this who haven’t already got this game, allow me to make your mind up: It’s got Yoshi in it. Now clean yourself up and go get it.

Share On: