While there were many announcements Nintendo didn’t quite provide us with at E3 (Zelda for Wii, anyone?) they certainly came through on another major first-party front: Mario. Mario vs Donkey Kong, Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story, Super Mario Galaxy 2, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, etc. It is the latter that I myself had a chance to play.

Let me start this by saying that I was a huge fan of Four Swords on the Gamecube. Working (ostensibly) as a team, but really just struggling individually to get ahead, it provided a unique and entertaining multiplayer experience. Super Mario Bros. Wii is…a little different, perhaps.

The game has all the elements you’d expect from a classic Mario Game. Hammer Brothers hurling a barrage of weaponry at you, Dry Bones that just won’t stay dead, and a few million Piranha Plant teeth. Graphically, the game is extremely standard. With four players pulling in four different directions at any given time, the game doesn’t have the opportunity to zoom in and provide too much detail. Fair enough. My only complaint is that the game is relying too much on nostalgia for its gameplay dynamics. The biggest new thing we encountered during our time running through the levels was the Propellor/Penguin Suits. Give the Wiimote a shake, and you go soaring for a short time. Lock unsuspecting enemies in blocks of ice. As for the rest of it, there just wasn’t much there. What I loved about games like Yoshi’s Island and even Super Mario Land 2 on the Game Boy is that they weren’t afraid to do things a little differently. By not clinging to the Mario canon, they actually gave us a reason to push forward and explore the new ideas–fun new items, secret levels, altered enemies, you name it. Now, perhaps I am being too hasty in my judgment of NSMBW (the title’s something of a mouthful). Maybe all of those things exist and we didn’t get far enough to see them, but I somehow doubt it. Time will tell.

Criticism aside, it is always fun to leap on the heads of your quasi-allies to be the first to reach the big shiny coin. It is satisfying to be the last man standing, carrying the team on your back. And yes, it’s still fun to lose control on the ice levels and feel that last rush of adrenaline as you know you’re not quite going to make it. Maybe online multiplayer would have given a more competitive feel to the game, but there certainly is something to be said for four people spread across a living room, clambering for superiority. You can be one of those four in late 2009. In the meanwhile, you might want to dust off that Super Mario World 2 cart and give it a spin.

Ah, sibling rivalry. Quick solutions for nagging problems.