Mario Bros Wii - Gameplay

Just yesterday I finished (NEW) Super Mario Bros. Wii (horrible title) the best game to have ever come out for the forsaken console and was wondering how to tackle it in blog form. Mega post? separate entries focusing on individual aspects? ignoring it completely? I finally decided to go the separate entries route so today we focus on gameplay. Other entries will deal with powerups, characters and so on.

This game is a piece of retro gaming deliciousness. The mechanics are identical to every sidescrolling Mario game from the original Mario Bros. to the numbered entries, World, and the DS titles. Yes despite the gameplay being so familiar we haven't had a game like this on a full size console since Mario World on the SNES. Instead we've been treated to variations on the Mario theme in the form of Mario 64, Sunshine and even Galaxy. Not bad games by any stretch but if I want to play a 3D platformer I'll just...well actually I don't want to play a 3D platformer.

Of course the main differences are the better graphics (better but not in the same league as what Microsoft and Sony are doing) and the inclusion of some of the Wii remote's unique uses. For the most part, however, the game consists of Mario making his way through very long 2D stages, getting powerups along the way, jumping obstacles, destroying baddies, grabbing coins and so on.

The game is markedly more difficult then anything with the Mario title in the past. The stages are huge and powerups are scattered at the rate of maybe 1.5 mushrooms per stage. If this seems scant (and it is) its nothing compared to the number of Yoshi's scattered along, by my count the green dinosaur appears only in three stages and if you make it to the end of a stage with Mario will dismount and wave goodbye to him before going to the next stage. Yep, gone are the days when you could simply go back and grab a Yoshi.

While the powerups are limited the baddies and pratfalls are not. The jumps have to be better timed, the baddies are fiercer and more varied. While the game is incredibly difficult in single player it gets exponentially worse in multiplayer. Yes its awesome that four players can play at the same time but it leads to fucking pandemonium. There are many ways to play multiplayer: when everybody fends for themselves it sucks because you're playing on one screen and all characters have to be on that screen at all times which means you have to wait for your retarded cousin to get to where you are before advancing, when playing cooperatively it sucks because the game slows down and you find yourself just carrying your retarded cousin (in the form of a nameless yellow toad) to the next level.

But playing in single player is incredibly fun precisely because its so challenging. You can grab one of the older Mario sidescrollers and beat it in a few hours, in a day at the most, but not so with this game. It took me a solid week to finish it and for this the game developers must be commended. They took a formula which we're all familiar with and made it challenging. And for the better because, honestly, at this point who can't start playing any older Mario game and finish it within the same day?

Replay value is added in the form of star coins or coinstars or whatever they're called. Three huge coins with star imprints are scattered through in each level. Now at first you're only told you can use them to buy hint videos (useless) but then Peach (Toadstool) teases something about world 9 after you finish the game and how you can only play through it once you have every star coin from each stage. Fucking great. I just spent a whole week thinking I didn't need these things and now I have to go back? ugh.

But in the end its an awfully enjoyable game. It's very difficult but its also very difficult to put down. I found my wii remotes constantly needing new batteries (something I've never seen before) and I really appreciated Nintendo not having me stand on some sort of board or making ninja slices or attachments and shit to actually enjoy this game. The best games for Nintendo consoles are those made by Nintendo. This is both a blessing and a curse because you often end up with shitty third party titles but then again the proprietary titles are so good that it makes you want to get a Nintendo console because you cant find these anywhere else.

Coming soon: Talking about power-ups, characters and the long promised Koopa Kids post.

Loser of the Week: TMZ. Haha you spent countless thousands of dollars for an old tattered up picture that purports to show John F Kennedy whoring it up on a boat with some naked Europeans, you call such picture potentially history altering....then it turns out all you bought is a photoshopped version of a picture that originally ran in a 1960's issue of playboy featuring paid models including "Andy" who doesnt even look like JFK. Hahaha, and you put your ubiquitous watermark on it! thus assuring the internet that your dumbassery will live on forever.