PSP World

Everything We Know About NSMB Wii

New Super Mario Brothers Wii is easily the most anticipated upcoming release for Nintendo's console. And with good reason: it has been a long time since we've played a real 2D platformer on the console and the Mario franchise has always been excellent. NSMB Wii is shaping up to be just as innovative, fun and addictive as every other entry in the series. Even though it shares the same name as its handheld predecessor, there really isn't much in common between the two games, other than the graphical style.

The first major innovation is the 4-player cooperative multiplayer. A 'competitive' mode is also available that keeps track of each players score and coins collected, but it plays exactly the same as the co-op mode. Essentially, players control one of up to four characters as they make their way through the level together. The selectable characters are Mario, Luigi and Toad (presumably Princess is locked up somewhere). Characters can 'bump' into one another, and players are able to pick each other up and throw them. This adds some interesting dimensions to gameplay as some platforms are only big enough for one or two characters to stand on at a given time. If a player dies, he can resume play if one of the other players hits a bubble with him in it. Death seems to come more frequently in NSMB Wii due to the impact of other players, which can be downright murderous.

When not killing each other, players in NSMB Wii will work together to solve some tricky puzzles.

Two new items will help players on their journey: the penguin suit, which allows Mario to slide on his belly to attack enemies, and the propeller suit, which shoots players into the air. Yoshi is back this time around and can be used to reach hard-to-get items, swallow enemies and shoot projectiles like in previous adventures.

In a somewhat controversial move, NSMB Wii contains Nintendo's new automatic play feature. This system allows players to circumvent difficult levels while watching how the stage is supposed to be beaten. It is only available after a player fails a particular level at least 8 times, so we doubt that it will have much of an impact on actual play.

Notwithstanding all of the added details, it is clear that Nintendo learned from the success of New Super Mario Brothers on the DS. Despite launching on a handheld that featured an exotic touch-screen control option, NSMB DS didn't use that feature at all. It seemed as though Nintendo wanted to keep the game as pure and as free of gimmicks as possible. Similarly on the Wii, motion input is kept to a minimum. Players hold the controller sideways like a traditional gamepad, and only use the waggle input occasionally, such as when controlling a see-saw or launching Mario into the air with a propeller helmet.

New Super Mario Brothers Wii is set to release in North America on November 15th, 2009.