by Hedirman Supian Nintendo Wii Game Review New Super Mario Bros Wii

New Super Mario Bros. Wii New Super Mario Bros. Wii New Super Mario Bros. Wii OLD is gold, they say. And so New Super Mario Bros Wii sees the heavily moustached mascot from Nintendo making a return to 2D gaming after his successful outings in 3D. Yes, finally, for old fogies like yours truly, no more motion sickness from the classic and simple side-scrolling view. The game hasn't lost any of its chops. The level designs are as ingenious as ever and you may find, like I did, your thumbs sore by the time you're done with this title. The graphics have gotten a facelift but are nothing to shout about. New additions include power-ups that let Mario glide and jump even higher with the help of a propeller suit or slide on ice in a penguin suit. There are new moves that make use of the Wii's motion controller. For example, you can only propel high with the propeller suit by shaking the controller. This ups the difficulty of the game because you need to time your button presses, the shake of the motion controller and that treacherous moving platform onscreen. There were times when I banged the Wii controller on my bed in frustration. Or screamed into a pillow. I still haven't quite recovered emotionally from that experience. I managed to finish the game - without much sleep - over a weekend. New Super Mario Bros Wii does offer a lifeline if you fail too many times. A new feature called Super Guide can complete the level for you. You just need to sit back and watch Luigi (Mario's brother, for the uninitiated) run through the level for you. If you thought negotiating tricky button presses was hard in single-player mode, the new multiplayer option lets up to four players play onscreen simultaneously. Choose to cooperate in the main story mode or compete with one another in the dedicated multiplayer modes. It's a lot harder than it sounds - and a guaranteed fun fracas. Hedirman Supian VERDICT Retro gamers will be chuffed with Mario's latest outing. It's an instant classic and harks back to the good old days of gaming, with the bonus of multiplayer gameplay and ingenious level designs. If you're expecting a game with 3D eye-candy, look elsewhere. Verdict: 4/5 http://www.todayonline.com/Tech/Gaming/EDC100219-0000056/Super-Mario-goes-Wii...