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Blogcritics Gaming, ever committed to bringing you, our readers, all the latest info, is happy to report our preliminary findings of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Our full review of Mario's latest adventure will be forthcoming next week, but having had the opportunity to take the retail version of the gave for a test drive, we're giving you a sneak peek at what we've found.
In brief – we're excited, very excited. It's a 2D side-scroller version of Mario made for today and a home console. It features good graphics, classic-sounding Mario music, and one Princess Peach who has been kidnapped by the those troublesome Koopalings.
The levels play out like suped-up versions of Super Mario Bros. games (as one would expect from the title). There are not only flags that one has to jump on at the end of a level (our initial attempts haven't resulted in fireworks yet), but question mark blocks, pipes to travel through, classic enemies to jump on, and even propeller suits.
What it isn't in our initial attempts, is a complete breeze to get through. It may be easy to get to the end of a level, but not to do so having accomplished everything on the level, and when one has to save a Toad (as sometimes happens), the levels are downright difficult.
The game offers up to four-player multiplayer within the main story, and can even have people add or drop between levels. There's also a "Quick Save" function which allows saves within a world, but those saves can only be loaded once before disappearing forever.
Based on what we've seen so far, New Super Mario Bros. Wii is just about everything one could want from a Mario game even if the title is a bit cumbersome. Look for our full review next week.
