Happy Mar10 Day!

In honor of March 10, aka Mar10 (Mario) day, I want to throw down a review of The New Super Mario Bros for Wii.

This game is the same concept as the original (side scroller, basic baddies, magic mushrooms), but with a fresh and new face slapped on it.  And, to top it all off, you can play with four people at once.  Same screen.  Same time.  Insanity.

The multi-player is obviously where the fun is at on this.  It is probably one of the most maddening and crazy multi-player games I have ever tried to play, but that is what makes it a blast.  I have been playing this game with friends and laughing so hard that I have tears streaming down my cheeks.  You can totally help out your friends by literally carrying them, or, on the flipside, you can totally screw them over and throw them off cliffs.  Or bounce on their heads at inopportune times and make them fall down holes, or into bad guys, or away from that mushroom they were going for.  Basically there is more screwing with each other than there is helping each other when you get a lot of people in there.

They added in some awesome new items too.  There is a mushroom that gives you a helicopter helmet and when you shake your Wii-mote you fly up into the air.  There is the original fire flower, but there's also a freezy flower where you shoot snowballs that freeze the enemy.  They also added Yoshis in some levels, which is always welcome as an increase in total cuteness factor.

The level design is so much fun.  They are side scroller, but there are hidden secrets all over the map, most of which will lead you to the three large gold coins you collect in each level.  The music is awesome as ever, as it is your typical Mario score.  There are 8 worlds, and, as you probably guessed, each world is themed.  There is ice level, sand level...  I don't know what to tell you - this game is not out of the box at all for the Mario franchise.  It has everything you would expect, but, probably because of that, it is exactly as fun as you would expect too.

If you have a Wii and somehow have not played this yet, go pick it up.*

*That is, go pick it up if you have at least a little bit of patience, because seriously, you are going to want to punch your friends and loved ones in the face when you play multi-player with them.