New Super Mario Bros. Wii Review

New Super Mario Bros. Wii is a great game, no question. This fresh platformer brings back all the gameplay elements that made the series such a noteworthy and inspiring franchise. And even though the series has made the successful leap from side-scroller to 3D platformer, the original formula still works extremely well today. New Super Mario Bros. Wii continues to prove that fact.

The Wii game lifts the efforts that went into the company's original revival on the Nintendo DS. That portable game brought the 2D platformer formula back for a new generation of gamers. The end product was a fantastic experience, mostly because -- for gamers like myself who grew up on Super Mario -- it was an incredible thrill to play through a fresh Nintendo-developed experience that captured everything we loved about the franchise. The 2006 release was docked a bit for being a bit on the easy side and offering some unbalanced Mario elements (two worlds are locked?), but ultimately it's still one of the Nintendo DS system's best titles.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii isn't a port of the DS game but it certainly has the DS game to thank for a lot of its production. The game brings back the classic platformer gameplay of the 8 and 16-bit designs of Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario World, and -- like the Nintendo DS game --introduces new gameplay mechanics that just wouldn't have been possible on the gaming hardware back in the day. You're going to get platforms that tilt and sway, cloud mists that obscure the levels, areas that are quite literally infested with dozens of enemies, and sizeable bosses that take up nearly the entire screen.

The game controls just as the original games: there's an option to plug in a Nunchuk for analog stick control, but this game plays best with a stock Wii Remote to mirror the original NES pad. The game features identical control to the 8-bit designs with a bit of a current generation twist. Not only are there gameplay elements where tilting the controller affects the game world, but players can give the remote a bit of a shake for contextual control: carry obstacles by holding the button and shaking the controller, or get a bit of a jump "pause" by thrusting the Wii remote at the peak of a leap.

New to the game are power-ups such as the Ice Flower, the opposite of the Fire Flower stand-by, that'll freeze enemies in place and turn them into slippery platforms or obstacles to pick up and throw and the Penguin Suit that enables non-slippery walking on ice and spectacular swimming underwater. These additions feel natural to the design, though the Penguin Suit doesn't look nearly as hip as the classic Raccoon wear of the original suit game, Super Mario 3.

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The game is a great challenge. Not brutally hard, mind you, but it puts up a good fight especially compared to the Nintendo DS game. Expect to put in several hours just in getting through to the final boss, and then returning to the levels to score each of the three coins that'll unlock even more levels. And then, to give it even more replay, there's the multiplayer aspect.

The original Mario Bros., an arcade game released in 1983, revolved around the idea that there were two brothers working together towards a single goal. But when Nintendo created Super Mario Bros., that partnership sort of disappeared and the adventure became solo. New Super Mario Bros. Wii brings the camaraderie back in a big way: not only can you play two players at the same time during the adventure, but it can become a quartet if you've got the controllers on hand.