Will says: I'm usually one of those people who gets really pissed off when I die playing a platformer, yet for some reason I found myself cracking up every time I died in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. This was most likely due to the fact that it wasn't my own ineptitude killing me -- it was my heartless fellow editors who were knocking me off platforms or leaving me to be crushed under blocks. Still, it was hard to get angry when Anthony hit me with a shell or Brian picked me up and threw me into the mouth of a piranha plant, mainly because I was trying to do the exact same thing to them. For a co-op game, this sure features a surprising amount of backstabbing and double-crossing.Outside of the action itself, a number of features really impressed me during my brief time with New Super Mario Bros. Wii. I love the fact that you can quickly and easily go back and play any previous level whenever you'd like, and it's organized visually, so you'll have no problems remembering which stage is which. The new Ice Flower adds a nice bit of strategy to the game without altering the core gameplay too dramatically, and I'm already looking forward to seeing what I can do with it in the underwater levels. You can freeze enemies, then stand on top of the now-floating ice cubes that contain them, which means we'll likely be seeing some hidden areas that serve as a reward for the patient.
The way I see it, New Super Mario Bros. Wii is like Super Smash Bros. Brawl for people who hate SSBB (i.e., yours truly). It'll be an absolute blast to play with a group of people at parties and, judging by the reactions of my fellow editors, just as much fun to watch as it is to play. Needless to say, I can't wait.
Ryan says: World 1? Grass Land. World 2? Desert Land. Mid-world fortresses; end-world castles; wandering enemies on the overhead world map; Koopa Kids. If you think that sounds an awful lot like Super Mario Bros. 3 (aka the best side-scrolling Mario game ever), you're absolutely right. New Super Mario Bros. Wii is Old Super Mario Bros. brought into an era of refined gameplay design, where Ice Flowers, Penguin Suits, and Propeller Suits complement all the familiar Mario tropes to form a highly competitive four-player co-op mode that I suspect makes things far harder than the single-player romp (for exactly the malicious reasons my co-workers describe). It's a joy to hear new renditions of the old music, to see a quartet of Mushroom Kingdom marauders riding around on Yoshi-back, and to once again go toe-to-toe with big bad Bowser's tragically underutilized offspring. Despite all that, I can already see that this game's screw-your-teammates-over nature will prompt a bottomless pit of rage among my friends and I.Anthony says: In life I like to think of myself as a pretty nice person, but once the controller was in my hands I turned into a complete bastard. For me, co-op is the way to play, especially since it not only allows players to work together to get through more difficult portions of levels, but also because you can totally screw one another over just for fun. Sure, it's rewarding to make it to the flag that marks a stage's end, but it's even more enjoyable to stomp on a friend's head just before that moment, allowing you to get the points and perhaps throw them to their doom. A Mario game that combines classic, well-designed platforming with the ability to destroy my friends in the process? Yes, please.
Brian A. says: While New Super Mario Bros. Wii's E3 unveiling was met with some accusations that Nintendo was simply milking its mascots and regurgitating old hits all over the stage, this is absolutely not the case with New Super Mario Bros. Wii. This is side-scrolling Mario action at its most chaotic, and -- excluding Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels -- possibly its most challenging. Sure, players could choose to cooperatively hop through the game's colorful set of stages in peace and unity, but we're human beings (and, more importantly, gamers), so we all know that won't be the case for the majority of playthroughs. I eagerly leapt on my fellow players' heads just to reach a power-up before they did, tossed Koopa shells sporadically about knowing well that they'd just be a hindrance to my teammates, and purposely ran and wall-jumped ahead of the pack to leave them all dead in the screens behind me. It's that level of frantic randomness that will keep me coming back, just to screw over my friends and laugh in their faces again and again.
