Preview: Super Mario Bros (Wii)

Let's dive straight in: we're guessing everyone understands the basic concept of a Mario platformer after 20 years of the genre: run left and right, and jump until you reach the end of a level. That's it, no convoluted 'innovations' - it's a formula so unwavering in its purity that literally everyone gets it after ten seconds of staring at the screen. Indeed, after some - admittedly unscientific - focus-testing, we've yet to find a person who hasn't fallen for the game's charms, and it's Nintendo's most joyously inclusive offering yet. That's all the more astonishing given that it doesn't sacrifice anything of the Mario formula in the name of accessibility.

This is a proper Mario platformer through and through and, while the original New Super Mario Bros. played like a love letter to Mario Bros. 3, this Wii iteration has more of a Super Mario World vibe, with its playful ingenuity, chunky environmental hazards and refined power-ups. True, it might not be particularly original - and much of the game will be familiar to anyone who's played one of Nintendo's previous platform classics - but it's infused with the company's trademark design excellence, taking traditional Mario tropes and giving them a subtle new spin.

Mario's new abilities, for instance, are a significant improvement over the DS game's largely superficial inclusions. This time, the likes of the propeller outfit and penguin suit play an integral role in the game, granting abilities that actually give you a tactical advantage when used intelligently - whether that's zipping over troublesome areas, freezing enemies into ice cubes and using them to fell multiple foes or offering greater manoeuvrability underwater. Oh, and Yoshi's back too! It all adds up to a game that's an absolute master class in family-friendly fun, without the design simplification seen in Nintendo's more recent mainstream offerings. Yes, Nintendo might be pushing New Super Mario Bros. Wii's multiplayer focus, but it still sits proudly alongside its predecessors as a bone fide Mario platformer, whether playing with friends or as a solo experience.

But, oh, that four player mode! With a full group of friends in tow, for either story mode or multiplayer-specific extras, New Super Mario Bros. becomes thoroughly compulsive in its hilariously haphazard chaos. Its stroke of absolute genius in story mode is its complete lack of enforced objectives - it's not competitive and it's not cooperative. Instead, each level is a neutral playground that polarizes play styles in constantly shifting directions. With no particular goal - other than to reach the end - it's pretty much a free for all, usually starting off with good-natured camaraderie before nose-diving into vitriolic retribution as the ingenious way characters interact with the world and each other comes to the fore.
Release Date: 10/11/2009